Softly Whispering 'I Love You'
by Snape's Nightie
Summary: After a devastating war and a turbulent courtship, Severus and Remus are supposed to be having a Happy Ever After. But fate is not quite finished with them yet. SSRL gay SLASH. Beware fluff and melodrama. Sequel to 'Salvage What You Can'.
1. Lost Property

A pointless piece of fluff, because I felt like it. It's a sequel to 'Salvage What You Can', but you don't have to read that first. Suffice to know the war is long-since over, and Remus and Severus are happy together. 

Disclaimer: JKR's. She's a star.

No HBP spoilers!

Remus had been so deeply asleep, it took him a few moments to decide what was going on. His groggy brain was not immediately forthcoming with such basic information as whether he was awake or asleep, where, or indeed, who he was. Blinking slowly, several facts eventually presented themselves. Firstly, it was the early hours of the morning. Secondly, some loud sound had woken him. Thirdly, the lane outside his house was unnaturally bright.

He wondered absently if it was Moody-style paranoia which made him reach for his wand and slip on a robe before peeking outside, but reassured himself that it was better to be safe than sorry. Gazing down into the road he was treated to the sight of an enormous, purple, triple-decker bus idling at an impossible angle, its headlamps floodlighting his front garden and fence. The doorbell rang. Aha, that was obviously what had woken him. Feeling rather foolish for having pulled his wand when the war had been over for so long, he hurried downstairs.

Hauling open the door, he was greeted by the sight of Stan Shunpike, slouching on the front doorstep with an expression that was in equal parts irritated and amused. One of his hands held a cane, his other arm had some kind of heavy coat draped over it – in the dazzle of the lights, Remus could not make it out precisely. The Knight Bus' engine was growling in the night air like a rampaging beast pausing to catch its breath before gambolling off into dark parts unknown, its exhaust enveloping the general vicinity in malodorous grey steam. This was a very odd scenario. Remus scratched a jagged fingernail into his palm to make absolutely sure he was not still dreaming.

Stan handed the cane to Remus without a word. Taking it from him, he realised that it was Severus' walking stick. Which meant that…. Remus' head jerked back up. It was not in fact a cloak hanging elegantly over the conductor's arm, but an unconscious person folded in half, a person dressed all in black, with black boots, dark grey spats and longish black hair liberally streaked with white hanging down and shimmering in the slight night breeze. For the first time, Lupin noticed the cluster of faces pressed against the windows of the bus, some dishevelled from sleep, some even in woolly nightcaps, all gleefully staring at the spectacle taking place on the doorstep.

To his great credit, Shunpike said not one word as he carefully handed the senseless Severus into Remus' arms. Once relieved of his burden, he touched the peak of his cap and walked briskly back to the bus.

"Where to next, Ernie?" he heard him say, as the engine revved disturbingly and the whole vision vanished with an ear-splitting bang.

Remus manoeuvred his lover inside with some difficulty and closed the door behind them. A perfunctory examination confirmed his suspicions – Severus Snape had drunk himself into a coma.

It happened about once every six months. Severus was no drinker as a rule, preferring water with his meals and tea to relax, but once in a while he would get caught up with some celebration- or commiseration gathering at the Institute of Master Potioners and end up completely and utterly wasted on the latest experimental cocktails. Witnesses claimed he would drink gallons of the stuff without so much as slurring a syllable until he would reach 'The Sip'. This was the split second where he would transform from model of sobriety to inelegant heap of disgrace, apparently just by taking one single sip too many. Remus had heard a rumour that notorious gambler Professor Hayashi, Director of the Institute and greatest living potions mistress had started sweepstakes on what time 'The Sip' would be imbibed. It seemed to be hard to gauge. She was making a fortune.

Having learned the hard way that a dead weight was impossible to navigate up the narrow stairs of his cottage, Remus instead used a careful hovering spell up to his room, gently depositing Severus on his own side of the bed, before removing his clothes and sliding them both under the blankets.

"Mnnnngh," went Severus, stirring slightly. Remus took a glass of water from the side table and tried to make him drink a little. "No," whispered Snape, petulantly pushing it away.

"Severus," said Lupin in a warning tone, "Just a little. You'll feel better for it in the morning."

"No," he hissed again. Then opened his eyes as something dawned on him. His face broke into a crooked grin. "Remus!" he exclaimed, delightedly.

"Hello," replied the werewolf amiably, unable to chastise him when he was wearing such and adoring smile.

"It's Remus!" drunken arms wrapped themselves clumsily around Lupin's waist and squeezed as Snape babbled in his damaged voice, delirious with happiness. "I love you so much! You're the best thing ever in the world, ever! You're so wonderful and sweet and kind and sexy and wonderful…"

"You said wonderful twice," Remus couldn't stop himself interrupting with a laugh. Snape frowned as he pondered this.

"How about 'amazing'? Have I said 'amazing'?" he ventured at last.

"No," Remus admitted.

"Ha!" Severus beamed in triumph and snuggled down against him. "You're amazing and cuddly and gorgeous and amazing…"

"And _tired_," he suggested evenly. There was a silence.

"What?" asked Severus, with some confusion.

"Never mind," sighed Lupin, and stroked the black and white head as his lover mumbled strings of slurred endearments against his collarbone until the words turned into gentle snores.

Their relationship was less than perfect, Remus knew, but since the two men had managed to salvage a life for themselves in the chaos after the Second War, Severus' presence had become the most important part of his life. The potions master was not the most demonstrative of lovers, except for his twice-yearly foray into drunken disorder when he could not stop telling anyone incapable of escaping how much he adored the werewolf, but he conveyed his feelings in more subtle ways. A lingering look across the breakfast-table. The small lopsided smile which was used for him alone. Tying a warm scarf around his neck before he went out to tend the garden.

Remus yawned and kissed his snoring lover's forehead. He had never imagined his life would turn out this way. In his dreams, his plans and his resigned suppositions, it had never, ever been this good.

…….

A/N: What do you think? I'd love to know!

I couldn't just let it lie after the amazingly generous reviews you gave to 'Salvage What You Can'. I reckon all Snape fans need a little fluff right now too…


	2. Intellectual Property

Autumn had been gradually turning to Winter for the last few weeks, but tonight gave up all pretence of stealth. The wind howled around the cottage, rattling the windows and scraping branches against the brickwork, hooting playfully down the chimney and tugging at the wooden fence posts in the garden like a restless toddler, making noise and threatening destruction at every turn. 

Inside, however, the cottage was a picture of calm and cosiness. The fire danced in the hearth, casting an orange glow over the two occupants enjoying its warmth from their respective armchairs, only wavering from its cheery blaze when a particularly fierce gust set it roaring sideways over the grate.

The wizard to the left of the fireside brushed a few strands of his black and white streaked hair out of his eyes, adjusted the rectangular, black-framed glasses nestling on the bridge of his hooked nose, and with the air of a man who is about to savour something he has been looking forward to, opened the first page of a crisp new magazine and settled it in his lap.

It was not a bright, exciting-looking magazine with pictures on the cover. Nor did it feature bold colours or catchy taglines to entice the casual reader to buy it. It was bound in a dull, stiff, burgundy cardboard, the only words printed on the cover were in a functional, black type. They said: "Alchemical Almanac. Vol: 49,556." The date was rendered on the spine in the same script. "Alchemical Almanac" did not care about its appearance, it did not want to impress strangers or outsell the flashier publications. It trusted that those who bought it would be interested in what was written inside. If this was not the case, then the AA did not care.

"Now, Remus," said the reader, in the whispering echo of his formerly rich, deep voice he had been left with since his captivity during the war. The room's other occupant lifted his head and tilted it to one side. "Where shall we begin? _News of the Brews: All the latest snippets from the world of potions. _No, I do not believe so. Their factual inaccuracies often provide entertainment in the Singed Eyebrow of an evening." He ran a long finger down the index. "_Big Bangs! Sophia Comme-Bustier examines the most significant moments in potions history. This week, the 1847 International Conference on the Classification of Dangerous Ingredients and its impact on modern brewing._ Good grief! Have these people nothing better to do?"

Remus rolled his amber eyes in agreement. The finger continued its stroll down the page.

"_A Silver-Standard Study of Incantation-Activated Preventative Antidotes, by Healer Wendy Suhthe,_ no. _When Ceiling and Floor Collide, Number 14: a catalogue of recently-discovered combustibles, by Vesuvius Crump, _well, well, Stumpy Crump! Finally out of that coma! He has his own private room at St. Mungo's, with a set of nightwear and a toothbrush. It seemed to be the sensible option. We studied for our Bronze Standard together," he explained, going slightly misty eyed at one of the few memories of his past which he could recall with fondness. Of course, he hadn't been called 'Stumpy' back then, still being in possession of all his limbs, though his fascination for all things explosive had caused a certain amount of concern amongst his contemporaries. The young Snape, still very highly-strung after seven years of being stalked by the Marauders, had soon learned to recognise the tone in which he said 'uh-oh' and take the appropriate action. Sadly, their former lab-partner Emily Anvil had not. May she rest in pieces. He sighed.

Lupin absently scratched behind an ear with his foot, losing interest now that his mate had stopped speaking. He leaped a full six inches off the seat at the startlingly loud profanity which Severus managed to croak three seconds later. He banged the magazine on the side-table and cursed inventively for a few moments before he managed to settle back down to content himself with merely aggravated muttering.

Ears sticking up with alertness, Remus slid out of the armchair and crept towards Severus, head tilted to the side questioningly. Snape scowled for a second before reaching out to stroke the silky head.

"My apologies, Remus," he sniffed, in a rather wounded tone. Lupin wagged his tufted tail tentatively, and rested his chin on the other wizard's knee in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. "It's that utter…." he chewed over an assortment of nouns before grinding out through gritted teeth "…_rotter_ Hardtbrind!" The hand that was not busy stroking Remus clutched convulsively at the arm of the chair. Remus flared his nostrils in sympathy. Severus picked up the magazine and read aloud again. "Listen to this! _A Critique of the New Theory of the Deterioration of Theriac, unexplained factors in Severus Snape's acclaimed study, by Hans Hardtbrind!_ The nerve! He has done this deliberately! I know for a _fact_ that he has been working on inanimate transfigurative unctions for the last two years! He has only done this to annoy me! He has no place _interfering_ outside his own field of expertise!"

A vein in the potion master's temple was throbbing ominously. His face had flushed with uneven patches of red the way it would in the old days, when Snape had been angry and miserable all the time. Now, fortunately, it happened very rarely, but the effect was still unpleasant. Unhappy at the sight of his lover being so upset, Remus insinuated himself into the armchair, paw by paw, so carefully that Severus did not notice until his thighs pointed out the inadvisability of having a lapful of werewolf. He glared down into the furry face. Undaunted, the glare was answered with a sloppy lick sweeping all the way from his chin to his eyebrows.

Taking a deep breath, Snape tried to let his anger flow out with the air, as the Magitherapists had taught him years before. It did not work. That smug Swiss moron had, with malice aforethought, attempted to trash his lovely theory for no other reason than to irritate him. He was not sure whether he should even bother to read the stupid article. No, that was a foolhardy thought. He must study it carefully, in minute detail. That was the only way he could blow the fat little swine out of the water, rip him to shreds, blast him into pieces…

A whimper cut through his fantasies of revenge. Remus licked his face again. Severus sighed another apology and buried his fingers in the soft fur covering his mate's belly, making the wolf roll over blissfully and close his eyes. Mesmerised by Remus' calming presence, he let his thoughts wander off into more peaceful channels as he stroked. He would talk to Hazel about it, she would understand, being a biochemist, or whatever specific names the muggles gave their research potioners. Then he would read the critique and answer it. _Then_, he would examine Hardtbrind's latest pet theory and pick so many holes in it people would confuse it with a Swiss cheese, and he would not dare show his face at the Institute of Master Potioners for weeks. Serve him right.

"You are a wonder, Remus," he whispered. A grey ear angled in his direction, but the relaxed wolf made no other movement. "You always help me to think straight."

Some full moons, Remus was barely capable of remembering why he was in a home and not tearing through the forest in hot pursuit of blood. At others, like tonight, his lupine brain saw everything with crystal clarity, giving him insights which he had completely overlooked as a human. His mate needed someone to hate, the voice inside his head told him. He was a passionate man, in need of a target upon which to focus all his feelings of pain and injustice. Sirius, James and Peter were all dead. For that matter, so were Voldemort and Dumbledore (though caring deeply for the latter, he had never quite managed to shake off the resentment left over from his unfortunate schooldays). He had buried his resentment for Harry – even becoming almost friends with Harry's muggle girlfriend Hazel, and his feeling towards Remus had undergone a complete volte-face.

So Hardtbrind was the obvious choice. Lupin had only met him a handful of times, but the pudgy little man seemed to go out of his way to irritate people. He had a paler version of Albus' eye-twinkle, but instead using at as an accompaniment for benevolence, he used it to say 'I know something you don't know, und mein Gott, you're missing out!' He had also overheard Institute director Professor Hayashi teasing him about being jealous of Severus' success in being the youngest wizard ever to achieve Gold Standard, and being almost twenty years younger than Hans. He had not looked amused. She had been off sick with Forget-me-not hiccups for two days afterwards. Refereeing subsequent disputes in the Senior Common Room or the Singed Eyebrow, she tended to rule in Snape's favour.

Severus used up all his hatred and bitterness on his rival, meaning that all he had left for Remus was love and tenderness, so he was not about to object to the professional feud. Besides, it spurred both potions masters on to greater academic successes, though either of them would be loathe to admit it. They were both so busy trying to trump each other with amazing discoveries and wonderful insights, the field of potion studies had come on in leaps and bounds, and their constant public quibbling of each-other's findings seemed to inspire the students to question established tenets and use their brains. The Toronto Academy of Potions, the former world leaders in cutting-edge research, were reportedly gnashing their collective teeth.

"I can deal with his idiocy," Severus was whispering now, apparently still distantly plotting his next move in the professional game of wizard's chess. "Because I have you."

Remus' head jerked up, displaying what he knew to be a dappy, puppy-dog grin of adoration. He licked Snape's face again, wishing he could answer in words. Black eyes stared into yellow eyes for a long moment, before even the werewolf's ears had to strain to catch the next comment.

"Now I have you, I can deal with _anything._"

…….

A/N: More pointless drabble, because I wanted to!

Thanks for your reviews of the last chapter, you have been most kind in encouraging me! Again! I love Stan Shunpike, it was gutting to hear he'd been arrested by those Ministry idiots! x

Confused? My introduction to the IMP comes near the end of 'Salvage What You Can', a fun but dangerous place in which to further one's education, or so I thought. Was great to read in HBP about the 'Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers'! I wonder how JK envisioned it?

Yes, Hardtbrind's attitude _is_ supposed to remind you of someone. See also the 'Alchemical Almanac'.


	3. Private Property: No Trespassing

Remus was in the mood to eat lemon drizzle cake. Not just any lemon drizzle cake, either. It absolutely had to be one from the tiny bakery in Lamorna, the closest village to Severus' home on the Cornish coast. The bakery was owned by muggles, but for some reason, in the West Country, more muggles than usual believed in magic. There was a kind of ancient sixth sense present in the air which made the locals more closely attuned to the unusual occurrences which other non-magical folk would either ignore or attribute to sudden drops in the air pressure. Occasionally, the Ministry would have to swoop down and perform some amazing feat of mass-obliviation. For the most part, however, they just crossed their fingers and hoped that none of the holiday-makers would take their rural hosts seriously.

On his first excursion into Lamorna, Remus had been startled to see 'genuine Cornish Piskie dust' for sale in a souvenir shop.

'Oh that's just coloured talcum powder for the tourists,' Severus had explained. 'You have to go all the way to Redruth to get the real stuff.'

'Tourists!' snorted the owner of the shop, who had sidled up behind them with her hands on her hips. 'All they care about is Ye Olde Smugglers and clotted cream. They wouldn't recognise proper pystry if it popped up and turned them into a natterjack toad.' She stalked off to yell at a small child who was elbow deep in the huge jar of fudge on the counter.

'Pystry?' Remus had asked, suspecting, not for the first time, that Cornwall was an entirely different country from the one he lived in.

'Magic,' Severus translated in his resonant whisper.

'But surely she…she's a…?' he glanced nervously around, as though expecting the MLE at any moment.

'Muggle?' yelled the shopkeeper, from across the room. 'Yeah, I am, but I'm not stupid.'

Mrs Peller from the bakery greeted him warmly. She had known Severus since he was a small boy and had been delighted to meet his 'Charming Young Man'. Remus had been very flattered by the epithet, uttered before his first-name since that moment in the same way some people would say 'Mister', but had pointed out that he was no longer so young.  
'Balderdash,' she had insisted. 'I've a good thirty years on you, and I still feel young!' Then she fed him chocolate crispy cakes, and their friendship was assured.

This morning was no exception. She walked out from behind the counter to give Remus a hug, brandishing a tray of still-warm cinnamon doughnuts under his nose.

"And how are my two favourite pystryors this fine day?" she beamed.

"I'm fine Mrs Peller," he assured her, assuming that she meant 'wizards', but still feeling faintly uncomfortable referring to magic in public. "I haven't seen Severus yet. I wanted to take him a cake."

"Of course you did, you're such a Charming Young Man, Remus. Lemon drizzle, wasn't it?" she shuffled through the doorway leading to the kitchen, and came back with the cake already in a crisp white box with curling yellow ribbons. He was about to ask how she already knew, when his eyes fell on a shining glass ball, twinkling on an intricately-carved stand on the table behind her. She grinned at him.

"I like to stay ahead of the game," she shrugged, taking the five-pound note from his unresisting fingers and rooting around for some change. "Now, no apparating with that or you'll curdle the lemon cream. Say hello to little Sevvie for me, will you?"

…….

Remus was still chuckling over the legendary former spy, unholy terror of Hogwarts and Gold-Standard potions genius being referred to as 'little Sevvie' as he made his way from the village up to the Gatehouse where Severus lived to surprise his lover with an unexpected, cake-bearing visit. The grey stone and slate lodge was looking at its most welcoming in the midday sun, sitting solidly against a bright blue sky with a kneazle napping languidly across the front doorstep – a million miles from the stern, commanding façade it presented during the blustery littoral winters where the shutters were fixed all day to keep out howling sea storms.

The kneazle glared at Remus, daring him to try and interrupt her hard day's dozing. He smiled in greeting. Viewing this as some kind of challenge, she narrowed her eyes and twitched her tail maliciously in his direction. Severus and Remus had been together for more than a few years now, but this creature still regarded the werewolf with suspicion or outright loathing, and no amount of fresh cream offerings or giving up the much-coveted prime spot by the fireside would adjust her opinion that he was something rather disgusting. Snape, of course, found their feud rather amusing.

Deciding it was not worth the fight, Lupin bypassed the front door and headed round to the kitchen door at the back. That way, he could hand the cake to Josty the elf and have her serve it with lunch. Rounding the corner to the back of the house, Remus was puzzled to hear voices from the garden. Or rather, Severus' hoarse whisper, followed by a rich, roaring laugh he did not recognise. A male voice. A young-sounding male voice.

This was odd. No one ever visited Severus. They would spend time as a couple with Harry and Hazel, or some of the Weasleys, but despite the potions master's recent foray into more tolerant, more sociable behaviour, he was nowhere near ready to invite other people into his home. Or so Remus had believed.

Severus gave a gurgling cackle deep in his ruined throat. That was the last straw! He seldom laughed aloud, not even when relaxing with Remus, not even on the rare occasions when he drank. Now he was sitting in his garden with some young man, amused and happy, not expecting his scruffy old lover to arrive and surprise them! There could be only one explanation. Severus was deceiving him. All those promises had been for nothing. Snape's natural duplicity had surfaced again, to string his trusting Griffindor partner along, laughing behind his back with some _toyboy._

Remus felt a dizzying pain in his chest, forcing him to lean against the wall of the house for support, as the 'other' man laughed again.

"Oh Severus," he chuckled fondly. "What would I do without you!"

What would I do without him, either? he wondered miserably, thinking back to all the emotion he had invested in the relationship, all the love he had showered upon the taciturn Slytherin. All for nothing. He was part of him now, not just part of his life but a physical part of his body, buried so deep under his skin it would kill Remus to try and remove him. The pain grew worse. His heart was clearly breaking.

Taking a deep breath, he walked as calmly as he could around the side of the house to the back garden, where, sure enough, Severus was sitting in his patio chair, his arm around someone else. Pure, wolfish anger coursed through him at this fiend who was stealing his mate. He felt sharp pains in the quicks of his fingernails as his claws tried to grow in anticipation of a challenge, and he realised with a jolt that the low rumbling sound he could hear was bubbling in the back of his own throat as he strode towards the interloper. The young man looked up sharply, and the cake in its box slid from Remus' stunned grasped and landed on the floor with a squelch. Freezing on the spot, he caught a fleeting glimpse of shaggy, black hair, a tanned complexion, broad shoulders set at a confident angle, and a look – that familiar look! – of having been surprised whilst up to no good. The pain in his chest radiated out with agonising sharpness through every extremity, and Remus' last coherent thought before he crumpled to the floor in a dead faint was – 'It _can't_ be!'

…….

Something cold and wet was being pressed to his forehead, and voices swirled incoherently around him. His left arm and cheekbone both hurt, and the rest of his body seemed undecided whether it was feverishly hot or shivering with cold. Someone was whispering his name, and for no apparent reason, there was a hint of citrus-freshness in the air.

Blinking in the bright midday light, Remus opened his eyes and gasped at the sight of one of the two wizards staring down at him, the memory of what had just happened flooding back with painful suddenness.

"Sirius?" he croaked incredulously at the broader figure, shaking his head to try and dispel some of the fog from his eyes. Struggling to sit up, his vision cleared, mercifully showing the differences which had not been apparent at first. Not Sirius. This man's face was a different shape, more pointed. His eyes were black, not blue. The hair was sitting differently on his crown. Sirius would never have looked so groomed. Nor would he have worn such an immaculately-tailored suit.

Severus was helping Remus sit up now, supporting his shoulders and pressing a goblet of cool water to his lips.

"Careful, my love. I think you have become a little confused," he was whispering. The young man was also looking confused, the damp napkin he had been using to mop Remus' brow was hanging limply from his delicate, un-Sirius-like fingers. Snape went on, "Do you know where you are?"

Remus ignored the question, pushing away the cup so abruptly that some of the liquid spilled on them both.

"Who's this?" he asked viciously, feeling upset and embarrassed at his melodramatic moment. OK, the bloke was not Sirius, but that did not change the fact that he was still kneeling a great deal too close to Remus' lover.

"Sorry, Professor Lupin," the voice was familiar, but he still could not place it. Not exactly like Sirius' arrogant drawl, but it was definitely the voice of a well-bred wizard. "I didn't realise you would get such a fright. You've seen me like this once before, you know."

"Draco, stop sitting there like a flobberworm and fetch the healing potions from the bathroom cabinet," snapped Snape. The young man leaped to his feet and vanished, apparently grateful to escape the awkward scene. Brushing a strand of grey hair from Lupin's face, Severus peered down at him, brow creased with worry. "Are you all right?"

"Draco? That's just Draco?" Remus could feel tears of relief trickling down his cheeks. He clung to Severus and buried his face in his chest, wincing slightly as the cloth touched some kind of cut or graze on his cheek.

"Gently," admonished the bespectacled wizard softly. "You hit the trellis as you fell. You gave Draco and I quite a fright. Will you tell me what just happened, please?"

"I'm an idiot," Remus sniffled, hugging Severus tighter. "I heard you laughing and thought you'd found someone else. Then he looked up with the exact expression Sirius used to have when he was caught doing something he shouldn't… I think I had a bit of a scare myself."

"Idiot werewolf," smiled Severus fondly, helping him carefully into a nearby garden chair. "Draco will be arrested if anyone finds him in this country. Even after all these years. I believe his short-lived teenage attempt to follow in his father's footsteps will haunt him for the rest of his life. This is the first time he has taken the risk of visiting me here. He disguised himself by darkening his hair and eyes, so that anyone happening upon us would believe him to be my nephew."

"Your nephew David," murmured Remus, feeling sillier by the second. "He did it at St Mungo's when you were still in your coma. But he was younger that time, less muscular, rather scared-looking; he didn't look anything like…" He tailed off, as the boy in question came out of the house, clutching his 'uncle's' potions bag.

Severus glanced appraisingly at him, his hands rubbing soothing circles on Remus' back.

"From certain angles you do resemble Black, a little," he whispered. Draco bristled and pushed the bag towards him with a little more force than was necessary.

"I can't help that! My mother was a Black! I suppose it would be more pronounced without the Malfoy fairness," he huffed. A sudden look of horror crossed his tanned face. "I don't look like Auntie Bella do I?"

Remus laughed. What a family this boy had! Was it any wonder his moral education had been somewhat erratic?

"No, Draco, nothing like her," he reassured him. 'David' breathed a sigh of relief.

…….

An hour later, their visitor was gone. At Severus' insistence, Remus was resting in bed, propped up on lots of pillows and wearing the soft cotton pyjamas he kept (but seldom had chance to wear) at his lover's house. He felt weak from his fainting spell, and foolish for having over-reacted earlier, not to mention incredibly guilty for having curtailed a rare visit from Draco. The Cornish wizard was still very fond of that young man, having adopted a role of paternal advisor since the death of Lucius Malfoy. He visited Draco in Italy a few times a year and the two corresponded regularly by owl. The blonde boy certainly held a great deal of Snape's affection, but there was nothing to fear from that quarter.

He realised just how much he had come to depend on Severus. The very thought of having all they had worked for together snatched away had done terrible things to him, admittedly not as terrible as That Day when the overzealous pair of aurors had arrested him for the murder of Malfoy senior. The memory of that horror still made Severus whimper in his sleep.

Remus buried his face in his hands and felt properly ashamed for having believed the man he loved capable of cheating on him.

"Remus Lupin," he admonished himself sternly, "You are a pathetic individual."

"I disagree," came a croaking voice from the doorway. Severus limped into the room, leaning heavily on his cane and hovering a tray with two bowls and a jug behind him. Remus sniffed the air and burst out laughing.

"The cake! Oh no, I forgot all about it!" The tray came to rest on his knees. He peered at the mess in the dishes as Severus painstakingly installed himself against the headboard next to Remus.

"I fear the structural integrity is beyond repair," he frowned solemnly, resting their foreheads together over the tray. "But, theoretically, the flavour should not be compromised. I have brought spoons and a jug of cream to cover all eventualities."

Lupin laughed again, sloshing a generous measure of cream onto each portion. Severus was right, of course. Though they did require cutlery to eat it, the lemony tang was still perfect, especially when doused in thick cream. They munched in appreciative silence for a few moments.

Once the snack was finished, Remus felt a great deal better, a good sugar fix had apparently been just what he needed. He was scraping the last traces off the sides of the bowl when Severus spoke.

"Did you truly believe me capable of deceiving you?" he asked, looking straight ahead. His voice had been calm, but his fingers fiddled nervously with the little buttons on his cuff. The sweetness in Remus' mouth was suddenly nauseating, his throat was working but no sound was coming out. An echo of the chest pain he had felt earlier returned and he felt his breathing quicken.

Severus' hand was on his shoulder in an instant, calming, soothing. The tray disappeared and Snape's other hand came round to stroke his hair, as one would placate an hysterical child.

"Forgive me, Remus. You are not well. I should not make such demands of you," he whispered, placing a palm on his forehead to check for a temperature. Lupin yanked it away and gripped it firmly between his own hands.

"No! I am the one who should ask forgiveness!" he sighed, pressing Severus' hand to his lips as he sought the right words of explanation. "I don't know what happened. I think I just had a moment of panic about what would happen if I lost you. I don't think you would two-time me, but you must understand, I love you so much, it's easy for me to see how other people could love you too. And you're very successful now, one of the leading potioners in the world, I'm sure that you are admired by very many in your field…you're laughing at me!" This last comment was uttered in exasperation. Severus' mouth had quirked into a smile, the black eyes glittered with amusement behind the glasses.

"Potions groupies?" he teased. Remus frowned and tried to explain the peculiar bonds he had witnessed between people at the IMP.

"Well, you all get so excited over your discoveries, you speak with such reverence about each other, you were overcome with nerves when you met that research team from Singapore...STOP LAUGHING!"

Severus' whole frame shook with mirth as he pulled Remus into a tight hug. Remus didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed, so he hugged back and just enjoyed the sensation of being clung to as though his lover's life depended on how hard he could squeeze.

"You are such a fool!" cackled Snape at last, kissing the tip of Remus' nose with glee. "You think that any of those geeks come close to being as wonderful as you?"

Lupin's throat sealed over again.

"I…" he managed, thickly.

"Of course not," Severus' voice was brisk now, clearly he had reached his quota of demonstrative affection for the week. He rose from the bed and reached for his walking stick, straightening his robes in a businesslike manner. "Now, you will get some rest until dinnertime, while I assess my students' latest insipid efforts to create a sensible Bronze Standard research schedule. I will set a silencing charm to prevent my observations from disturbing you."

He had reached the doorway at his graceful limp before Remus managed to organise his tongue and throat enough to string a sentence together.

"Severus," he called. The other man paused. "I love you."

He nodded without turning around.

"I know," he replied. And continued through the door, closing it quietly behind him.

…….

A/N:

Ebon Oleander Wenham, Miriam, Lucidity, Sinful Wolf, Neous, Sea Priestess, Shakespeare's Sister, HJ, and of course, Silverthreads: Thank for some insightful and some cute reviews! They are very encouraging! You are such nice people. I wasn't expecting much comment about this one, it is very much a series of fluffy vignettes with no particular aim in mind, except to act as an antidote to the plethora of angstfics since 16th July. I noticed that there are fewer RLSS romances than there used to be (or perhaps it's just my imagination). Of course, my knee-jerk reaction was to write one…

Excessivelyperky, Mercutio-rane: You are so, so right! It's quills at dawn with these people (and dusk, and noon, and tea-time…). Glad you're enjoying, you guys have been very supportive all along x


	4. Public Property

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first third-round match of this year's Amateur League Quidditch Tournament!" The crowd erupted into cheers and waving as firecrackers exploded on all sides as the voice echoed all over the stadium. "My name is Lee Jordan and I will be your commentator today, for what promises to be a hugely exciting game. First of all, huge thanks to the Wimbourne Wasps for the use of their lovely stadium, let's hope it survives unscathed!"

"I doubt it," said Harry, gleefully munching on popcorn on the bench next to Remus and Severus. "The amateur league is much more brutal than the real one!" Severus began to whisper something in reply but was drowned out by Lee.

"This match showcases the flying talents of two of the greatest academic institutions in the wizarding world, so without further ado, let's meet the teams. Put your hands together for the Royal College of Transfigurative Magic!" Half of the stadium were on their feet, yelling with enthusiasm as seven figures in yellow robes with crown motifs flew onto the pitch. As Jordan called out their names, Remus and Harry clapped politely, noticing that Severus had his hands folded in his lap and his lip curled in disdain. Lupin smiled, wondering if it was wrong to be so turned on by one's lover's killer competitive streak.

"And taking a peek inside the VIP box for the Royal College, we can see the president, Professor Reginald Johnson," the announcement roused some cheers, "and some former students, including Headmistress of Hogwarts, the lovely Professor McGonagall," more cheers and a few wolf whistles this time. From the other side of the pitch, they saw her stand up and fire a stinging hex at Lee. Snape smirked and nodded his approval. "Ow! Sorry, Professor! Next to the Headmistress is Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt. As I'm sure you all know, the MLE's team crashed out spectacularly in the first round when they lost to the Diagon Alley Shopkeepers by 280 points to 20," there was more cheering as Kingsley visibly glowered, and a tall redhead in the audience stood on his seat and bowed.

Fred and George Weasley had been the ones to revive the Amateur League Tournament the previous year. Five teams had competed back then, but this year there were a total of thirteen – apparently the attraction of watching your friends competing, instead of a bunch of overpaid professionals, was highly amusing. The Diagon Alley side were by far the most skilled, being coached within an inch of their lives by Fred from his terrifyingly well-customised wheelchair, and ruthlessly captained by George. With all the proceeds going to charity, not even Rita Skeeter had been able to complain about this new source of entertainment.

"Now to _stir_ thing up a bit, please welcome the Institute of Master Potioners!" Remus, Harry and Severus thought they had gone temporarily deaf as all around them the IMP supporters surged to their feet, hollering and throwing home-made fireworks. Snape remained seated but waved his cane regally to indicate his support. This time, Remus recognised nearly all of the names as they were announced. Lee continued.

"And in their VIP box we have Institute Director Professor Michiko Hayashi. Sorry, Professor, Mundungus informs me that no more bets can be taken!" she glared, pointed threateningly at the bottle of butterbeer sitting on the railing next to Lee and mimed pouring another liquid into it. He swallowed and hugged the bottle to his chest. "Beside her is a familiar face to all of those with a sweet-tooth, Meredith Honeyduke; also Vice-Chairman of St Mungo's Hospital, Lazarus Lefevre," they both stood as their names were called, Honeyduke waved his old blue and silver IMP scarf in the air, to rapturous applause. "And just behind them I can see Order of the Phoenix veteran and IMP boy-wonder Professor Severus Snape," despite the scowl Severus was brandishing, everyone in the stands cheered again, amused at Jordan's reference to his status as the youngest ever person to achieve Gold Standard for their brewing skills. Remus placed a hand on his knee in what he hoped was a gesture of solidarity. Snape stared sulkily at it but made no move to pull away. "And just next to him is – good grief, surely he doesn't know one end of a cauldron from another – Saint Harry of Potter!"

There was more tumultuous yelling. Harry flushed bright scarlet at his reception, caught off balance by the unexpected adulation. As the cheering showed no sign of ending, he began to bite his lower lip in embarrassment, until Severus saved the day with a bit of mild teasing. A flick of the ebony wand set a shimmering disc of golden light around the young man's head, making everyone – Harry included – crease up with laughter.

"Nice halo, Harry!" he heard Fred and George bellow from another stand. Harry stuck out his tongue at them both and slumped against Remus while Lee continued his commentary and the focus returned to the pitch.

"Are you all right?" Remus asked, knowing that even after all this time, the boy sometimes got a bit overwhelmed by the attention. He tried to hide the flush of pure pride which swept through him whenever someone acknowledged how talented his two favourite people were – neither tended to appreciate his soppy expression.

"Yes, thanks for the headgear, Severus," he smiled from between glowing cheeks and reached up to cancel the charm himself.

"That Jordan creature has always been a menace," hissed Snape, leaning over so they could lip-read him amidst the noise. "He loves the sound of his own voice."

"Presumably, everyone else does too," interjected Remus, reasonably, "He's the most popular sports commentator the Wizarding Wireless Network has ever had!"

The game began, leaving the three men no room for anything but some enthusiastic spectating. Naturally, the standard of play was not as good as the professionals, but the airborne academics threw themselves into their task with determination, creating a nailbiting game where Potioners and Transfigurants matched each other goal by goal.

The singing of the crowd started off being very polite, as the two sides sang their traditional anthems ('Bubble, Bubble, Bubble, Boom!' and 'Ch…ch…ch…ch…Changes' respectively,) but became progressively less pleasant as the number of fouls increased. By the last fifteen minutes, the chants of 'I'll turn your mama into a toad!' and 'Ooh! Ah! We'll put your eyeballs in a jar!' were the least offensive.

Finally, just as the tension became unbearable, their friend Luna Flintoff of the IMP's Lycanthropy research group spotted the snitch hiding behind the Royal College's left-hand goalpost and made a death-defying dive for it.

"Pull up!" screamed Harry, half a second before she hit the grass and flailed around with her robes over her head, bits of her broom flying in at least three different directions. The crowd held its breath as she struggled to her feet.

"Is she hurt?" Remus asked. Despite a lifetime spent watching his friends survive falling off brooms, his fingers and toes were tingling with excitement and dread.

"Has she got the snitch?" Professor Hayashi demanded of Hardtbrind, who was leaning so far over the railing to try and see, his feet were waving in the air.

Luna lifted her fist in front of her bruised face and slowly opened it, beaming.

Severus threw his walking-stick into the air as the roar of delight rocked the IMP stands and the scores of potions geeks who could go for weeks without fresh air or human interaction began squealing, sobbing and hugging each other. Dark blue-clad supporters spilled onto the pitch as Lee Jordan announced the final score, and up in the Institute's VIP box McGonagall appeared out of nowhere to shake Snapes' hand.

"Just wait until next year, Severus, we'll flatten the lot of you!" she threatened good-naturedly, but with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

"Five galleons, if you would be so kind, Minerva," the potions master gleefully informed her.

Remus' mouth fell open, though he knew he shouldn't really be surprised. The relationship between the former Hogwarts Heads of Griffindor and Slytherin had been founded on years of fierce rivalry. It was only natural that Minerva and Severus should have a flutter for old times' sake from opposing sides of a quidditch match. He hoped there were no unfortunate forfeits as there had been at school, though. The year he spent teaching there had been an eye-opener in many ways.

There was no more time for reflection as the messy tangle of victorious team-members zigzagged awkwardly towards the stand and crash-landed, still clinging and singing, into the front few rows. Assorted dignitaries collapsed with disgruntled noises as Harry and Remus pulled Severus and Minerva clear of the chaos. Professor Hayashi picked herself up from under the battered form of the massive IMP Infirmary mediwizard-turned-beater, Fairhead, immediately launching her frail body into the group-hug.

The Lycanthropy research group – Team Wolf to their friends – were by far the most outrageous celebrants. Remus and Harry's protests fell on deaf ears, and Severus smirked to see them being mercilessly dragged off to the pub with the jubilant geeks and a slightly concussed Luna, who was asking Harry why his face looked so familiar.

"You OK?" called Remus from Fairhead's rigid grip, knowing that his lover had already taken his fill of excitement and public places for the day. Or possibly the year.

Snape nodded, shooing him away with a flick of the wrist. "Enjoy yourselves," he mouthed. "I'm going home."

…….

It was early evening by the time Remus managed to slip away from the beer-garden of the Singed Eyebrow and apparate to Cornwall.

Though he never took part in any of Team Wolf's experiments, he would pop in every so often to hear about their latest developments, becoming rather fond the bunch of well-meaning oddballs. Some, like Luna, were werewolves themselves, Asif and Roger had grown up watching family members suffer; while Tony had no connection with the condition except for a borderline unhealthy obsession which had almost cost his life on several occasions.

"I can't help it," Tony slurred in his whiny, nasal voice, "I just love watching the transformation. From one form to another in seconds! Such amazing creatures!"

Remus found it refreshing to be with a set of people who can debate the most shameful aspects of his condition over tea and biscuits as society ladies would discuss the weather. Bumping into him one day in Diagon Alley, Asif asked about the affect of the transformation on the texture of his stools, while Roger was thrilled to discuss his brand-new discovery about were-flea tonic over a pint in the Singed Eyebrow. Somehow, this casual acceptance of the everyday aspects of his dark secret made Remus feel more comfortable, not less, as though turning into a raging monster once a month was the most natural thing in the world.

None of them were permitted to supply Remus' Wolfsbane, however. Severus trusted no other – not even Hayashi – for that most important task. Though the taste had not improved since the eighties, Severus would always be on standby with a bar of Honeyduke's Fairy Silk to help the medicine go down.

When Remus arrived at the Gatehouse, the house-elf informed him that Severus was out on the cliffs, so he took a brisk stroll out to find him. The evening sunlight was absolutely glorious, glistening on the sea and tinting the land and the hardy cliff vegetation orangey-pink, while high in the air, a handful of swallows darted around like mad things trying to catch their supper. After the clamour of the day, Remus let the peaceful atmosphere carry him away.

Rounding the curve of the headland, he frowned as he failed to spot Severus anywhere along their usual route. Though he could walk several miles on his bad knee if the mood took him, it was unusual for him to deviate from the little circuit after an exhausting afternoon. Thinking that they must have missed each other, he turned to head back to the house when he heard a small splash below him. Then another. The frown became a grin.

It took Remus a couple of minutes to find the fracture in the cliff face which concealed the way down to shore. Severus would have apparated down, of course, having known every nook and cranny of the area since he was tiny, but Remus did not trust himself not to get splinched through the vicious shards of rock, opting to take the awkward scramble on foot.

The rock pool was in the perfect location for private swimming. Not visible from either the cliff-path above or the sea, few people knew it even existed.

Severus was moving jerkily through the glittering water, using a lopsided stroke of his own invention which would have looked clumsy on anyone else. He reached the edge of the pool and turned, smiling as Remus pulled off his shoes to dangle his feet.

"Hello," he mouthed, bobbing over to greet his lover.

Remus leaned down and kissed him gently on his damp forehead.

"How are you doing?" he asked, as soberly as he could manage. "I'd forgotten how exciting a match could be. I hope you weren't too exhausted."

Severus gave him a small sneer and tugged him forward until he slid into the warm water with a yelp. Taking Remus in his arms, he whispered firmly in his ear.

"I may be older and weaker than I used to be, but I'm not a complete invalid!"

Remus giggled, kissing him again as the water lapped around them.

"Sorry. I worry about you, that's all," he admitted sheepishly, feeling his extremities tingling again, presumably at the proximity of a mostly naked, sleekly wet Snape.

"I know," he breathed, deepening the salty kiss, before pulling back and fixing him with a penetrating stare. "You taste of quick-gin," he complained.

"We were celebrating an infamous victory," Remus grinned, unrepentant.

"Well I hope Professor Hayashi bought a few drinks," he sighed, "She ought to be a millionaire by now."

He pulled away and swam a few more lengths the golden evening light while Remus got out of the water and cast a drying charm on himself. Perching on a rock, he gazed out to sea for a while, absently rubbing at a faint ache in his upper arm, and reflecting on the many contentments of his unexpectedly happy life. As he helped Severus out of the water and into his robe, a sudden thought struck Lupin and he began to giggle.

"What?" demanded the potions master, looking faintly alarmed.

"Nothing," he replied with a snort. He wiped his eyes carefully and took the limping man by the elbow. "Come on, _boy-wonder_, let's get you back home." Remus exploded into giggles again, collapsing helplessly against Severus.

Snape rolled his eyes at the open sea.

"Griffindors," he muttered.

…….

A's very long N: Hope you're still enjoying this pointless, fluffy fic! Thanks for your generous reviews about the last chapter! I've never written quidditch before, so I hope this worked OK.

'Changes' is a song by the legendary god-like genius Mr David Bowie. How do the Royal College of Tranfigurative Magic know it? I figure that if any rock star is a closet wizard, it's Dave. x

Why the 'Royal' College if wizards don't have royalty? I was reading David Starkey's excellent book on Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second queen (out of a total of six, if you were wondering – a very busy chap), whom the public hated at first and called a witch because she had so thoroughly ensnared the love-struck King. In my universe, she really was a witch and founded the college in 1535 in the same way her husband founded the Royal College of Physicians and Trinity College, Cambridge. So there.

Oh, and quick-gin is a bit like sloe-gin, but gets to work much faster. Hee.


	5. Christmas Present

After all this time, Remus still loved waking up next to his lover in the morning.

He loved the feel of ice-cold feet being pressed against his calves to steal their warmth; he loved the fact that his first yawn inhaled choking strands of black and silver hair; he loved the grumpy snort which answered his bright and musical 'good morning' every single time. It usually took Severus ten minutes or so to recover sufficient energy after his night's sleep to be pleasant, and Remus loved to observe the tortuous process.

Today was no exception.

"Merry Christmas, love!" he trilled to the bony form cocooned in blankets beside him. Most of the blankets, in fact.

"'Fyou say so," Snape grumbled, burrowing deeper and sliding frozen fingers into Lupin's armpit. Remus yelped in shock.

"Yes, I do say so," he recovered quickly, marvelling at Severus' astounding talent for absorbing coldth. "The sun is shining and it's a beautiful Christmas day!"

"Middle of the night," Snape grunted.

"It's nine a.m. and I have a lovely present for you!" Remus beamed.

"Oh, Goody Gumdrops."

He adored this little ritual. The darker wizard had mellowed considerably since the advent of their relationship, but at this time of day, the cantankerous git was his old, irascible self. He was sarcastic, unpleasant, selfish and mean. He complained, whined, threatened and swore. Remus baited him mercilessly until he became so cross he awoke completely and instinctively reached for his wand, only to remember that his life was happy now and that he was in love with the blasted werewolf currently tormenting him. The moment of realisation would dawn on his scowling face like a midsummer sunrise kissing the wave-crests across the bay near the Gatehouse. Remus' insides would melt every time he watched it happen.

"Bet you can't guess what it is!" he teased.

"Oh, be quiet, you obnoxious dunderhead," the snarl came from deep inside the bed.

Remus stretched his arms happily, enjoying his lover's multiple layers of personality, basking in the knowledge that however many Snapes existed under that impenetrable façade, each and every one belonged to _him._

The previous evening, the couple had attended the traditional Christmas Eve party at the Burrow. Severus had been reserved, as was usual when he appeared in public, staying in the corner of the room and only speaking when spoken to. The fact that everyone in the room had made the effort to go over and speak to him at some point during the proceedings had delighted Remus, almost as much as his lover's polite replies. Even when a mildly inebriated Neville had tripped over Snape's cane and landed in his lap as he came over to wish his former Nemesis the compliments of the season, the former Curse of Gryffindor had limited himself to a single raised eyebrow and a friendly suggestion that it was perhaps time for Neville to switch to lemonade.

It had been a larger party than usual, with the entire Delacour family in attendance for the first time. Precious few of the assembled British wizards had more than a smattering of French, and likewise, the French were far from fluent in English; but the combination of good-natured gesticulation and good winter punch had everyone acting like old friends. Fleur's Grandfather, Jean-Yves, even managed to have the whole room roaring with laughter as he mimed comic events from the last time he was in England, during the Grindelwald war.

Harry had spent most of the night playing with Charlie's baby son Albus, who was fourteen months old and more vividly ginger than all of the other Weasleys put together. He adored Harry, screaming his little lungs out every time anyone else tried to hold him.

"Another helpless victim of the omnipotent Potter charisma, I see," whispered Snape, sitting just behind them. Harry, recognising the teasing tone for what it was, stuck his nose in the air.

"What can I do? It's not my fault that I'm so wonderful," he sighed with mock arrogance. Snape smirked and Harry held the baby out for him to hug. Looking uneasy, the older wizard tried his mildest and most sincere smile for little Albus. Albus was not fooled. He took one look at the dark person, dressed all in black with black-rimmed spectacles, sitting alone in the shadowy corner and burst into ear-splitting howls.

Remus glared at him accusingly from across the room.

"What?" mouthed Severus, lifting his palms in a gesture of innocence.

"Don't worry," Charlie's wife Maria laughed. "He's a fusspot at the moment! Don't take it personally."

Harry and Severus chuckled quietly at each other. It may just have been a trick of the light, but it seemed to Lupin that the potions master was looking a little too pleased with himself for still having the ability to frighten someone, even if that someone was a very small baby.

Then Gabrielle Delacour, now twenty-two and the most beautiful young woman Remus had ever seen, had reduced everyone to tears with a spine-tingling rendition of "Douce nuit, sainte nuit." For the second verse, everyone joined in using their own language, making an oddly touching blend of words which made the old werewolf believe, just for a moment, that the world _could_ be a peaceful, harmonious place. Severus surreptitiously dabbed at the corner of his eye with a handkerchief.

"Damnable scented candles," he tutted at Harry, who was looking at him questioningly.

"Sure," smiled the young man, wiping the steam from his own glasses.

Remus smiled at the memory, turning back to his grumpy partner.

"Well, my love, if you're not ready to get up and celebrate Christmas, I suppose I shall just have to start without you!" He threw back the covers and swung both feet over the side of the bed but was prevented from standing by the thin hand which shot out like lightening and grabbed his wrist. Turning slowly he found himself on the receiving end of an intense black stare which tingled all the hairs on the back of his neck.

"I do not think so," whispered Severus with a devastatingly sexy coldness, apparently more awake than Remus had realised.

A sharp tug sent Lupin tumbling backwards into bed.

…….

Three hours later, Remus stretched languidly.

"Mmm," he sighed, sated and supremely content. "I'm starving. Let's have some breakfast."

"Mph," groaned Severus, his head resting on his lover's chest.

"Come on, we'll have a shower and some nice kippers for brunch!" he licked his lips at the thought, having just worked up a monstrous appetite. Gently pushing Snape off him, he tried again to sit upright and put a foot on the floor.

"Where do you think you're going?" enquired Snape with a Medusean glare.

"Down to my kitchen to make some food," Remus replied, swallowing nervously in the beam of those harsh eyes. Those fathomless, captivating, luscious, glittering eyes, which were devouring his newly-ravished body with the sort of expression that is the last thing a wildebeest ever sees. Remus' lips were suddenly dry again.

The elegant white hand wrapped itself around his arm and hauled him back down.

"Severus!" the protest was feeble, but nevertheless, Snape stopped nibbling at his earlobe long enough to ask;

"Yes?"

"Stop that!"

"Whatever for?"

"We shouldn't!"

Black eyes rolled impatiently.

"I shall not dignify that pathetic statement with a response," the sneer gave his lover the chills, and he returned to exploring the lycanthropic ear with which was fascinating him so.

…….

It was two-thirty before they finally managed to head downstairs to the kitchen. The winter sun which had bathed the bedroom golden earlier in the day had been extinguished by ominous-looking grey clouds rolling down from the Peak District. The couple were at Remus' Derbyshire cottage for the festive season, deeming it more cosy than the grey old Snape house, which was very much at the mercy of a cruel coastal wind in the depths of winter.

Josty the house elf had taken the news with suspiciously good grace, chattering happily about spending time at the castle where her 'friend' lived.

"Her friend?" Remus had asked. "Oh dear, Hermione would be ashamed of me for being shocked that elves can have friends, too!"

"I rather think that the term 'friend' is a euphemism, in this case," Snape had smirked lewdly. Lupin's jaw hit the floor.

"Josty has a boyfriend?" he gaped.

"Why not?" Severus teased. "Even a nasty, poisonous potions master has managed to find a poor gullible fool to take him to bed. Why not an old elf? Besides, I believe the two of you have met."

"Oh, I doubt it, Severus," he had replied. "I only know one living house-elf and that's…" He tailed off on seeing the look on the other's face.

"Dobby," grinned Snape.

"Dobby?" Remus repeated, incredulous.

"Indeed. She goes up to Hogwarts to visit him every Saturday night," he frowned as though trying to remember something. "From what little she tells me, I gather they go up to the Astronomy Tower and…"

"OK, OK, I get the idea," the werewolf shuddered. "Elves are wonderful creatures, but there are some mental images I do not need."

So Remus had made all the preparations for Christmas himself. As usual, Severus had been indifferent to the entire phenomenon, but knowing that his partner had a series of small traditions which he enjoyed upholding, he did everything that was asked of him, and refrained from sneering too often. The only thing he had insisted upon was that at least one day over the festive period should be spent alone, just the two of them, without any interference from anyone else. With the Weasley's party on Christmas Eve and Minerva's lunch on Boxing Day, they had decided to set aside the big day itself for spending quality time.

For the first time, Harry was spending Christmas with Hazel's family in Godric's Hollow. She was the eldest of five sisters, and as her parents had divorced several years ago, there was also a positive army of step-siblings, grandparents and even an adorable four-year-old autistic half-brother who kept everyone on their toes. The Boy-who-lived was thrilled at the prospect of such a lively Christmas.

"He says that _now_," Snape had rubbed his long fingers together with a grim sort of glee. "I wonder how he will sound after the over-excited brats have ground him down with a whole day of fighting, screeching, being sick and playing practical jokes on him?"

Remus had immediately agreed with Severus, but understood Harry's fascination with big families, having been so isolated for most of his miserable childhood. This was a real milestone in his relationship with Hazel and Remus hoped everything went well.

The kitchen at Laburnum Cottage was delightfully quiet now as the two wizards prepared the small goose for dinner and laid out kippers, cheese, fresh bread and pickles for a very belated Christmas breakfast.

They ate in companionable silence. Remus was so hungry he had demolished four kippers and an enormous wedge of stilton before he felt able to slow down and make conversation.

"Do you think it will snow?" he asked, eyeing the clouds outside. It had grown so dark they had been forced to light the lamps.

"Rain is more usual in this part of the country," Severus observed dryly.

"But snow is so festive!" protested the werewolf, allowing his childish delight to show on his face, flushing pink and smiling at the memory of white Christmases every year at school in the frozen Scottish Highland castle. His sharp ears picked up the faintest hint of a growl from his partner. "Severus? Are you all right?"

"Have you finished eating?" the Slytherin answered the question with another question.

"Yes, thank you. Why?"

Lupin did not even see him move.

The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back on the kitchen floor, with an amorous potions master stretched out on top of him, tearing at the clothing he had only recently donned, caressing and kissing every inch of skin, all the while making that tiny growling sound in the back of his throat.

"S…Severus?" he gasped, wondering if he had inadvertently doused himself in Snape-nip at some point that morning.

"It's your own fault," the darker man grunted unapologetically. "You're glowing again."

He supposed it was the excitement of Christmas which was radiating from him. There was no excuse to be acting like a kid at his age, but somehow this time of year always made him happy and peaceful. Snape had mentioned the effect that Remus' 'glowing' had on him, citing it as the reason he had first agreed to go to share his bed all those years ago. Apparently this had not faded over time.

Not that Lupin was complaining. His last coherent thought was that there was absolutely no better way to celebrate the season of love and goodwill than by going at it like teenagers on the kitchen floor.

In the next room, a pile of colourful gifts lay unopened beneath the beautifully decorated pine tree; while outside, unobserved by the cottage's occupants, the gentlest white flakes of snow began tumbling from the frozen sky.

…….

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this little bit of festive fluff, which I couldn't resist writing as I reflected on what present Snape might want.

'Douce nuit, sainte nuit' is, of course, 'Silent Night' in French. If anyone knows where I might acquire any 'Snape-nip', please let me know.

From a messy desk in a sub-zero degree office in a very festive corner of London, I wish all of you a peaceful and happy Christmas, and look forward to a brand new year of fanfiction joy! Thanks once again for taking the time to read.

With very much love,

SN x


	6. Confiscated Property

"W.D.," said Remus, concentrating carefully.

"Good."

"C.W.M," he continued.

"Yes."

"S.W.Y.C."

"Yep."

"S.O.A.I.S."

"Mm-hm."

"C.I.T.N.T. and…," he frowned and squinted, leaning forward slightly. "Omega?"

"Well done!"

"Greek letters? That's cheating!" he accused the tester good-naturedly.

"Have you ever known a potioner who played fair, Mr Lupin?" She asked airily and noted down the results on her chart. "Congratulations, Remus. Your eyes are perfect, as usual."

"Well, I'm glad part of me is," he sighed, stretching out his aching muscles.

Remus always dreaded the annual medical check-up for long-term Wolfsbane users. Ten years previously, the health checks had been stipulated by international law for anyone who had been taking the medication regularly for more than three years – partly to monitor the widespread use of what was essentially a poison, but mostly to ensure that the lycanthropy virus was not developing immunity to it, the consequences of which could be deadly for innocent humans. The Institute of Master Potioners' 'Team Wolf' eagerly devoured the results every year in the hope of finding something of use towards their development of a cure for the condition. To no avail, so far, but it kept their hungry minds occupied for a while.

The Medi-witch summoned Remus' file and ticked one of the last empty boxes on this year's test sheet.

"So, you've completed the eye test, the hearing, smell and taste tests, cardio-vascular, muscular, skeletal, skin, lung, liver, kidney and brain functions, power and control of magic, and all your allergy tests."

Remus slumped in his chair. No wonder he felt so tired. When it was all read out in a long list, his day's examinations sounded like a thorough method of torture. "And you've given us all of your fluid and tissue samples…ah, except one!"

Every year, he swore he would not be embarrassed. Every year, he promised himself he would get that particular one over and done with first thing. Yet every year he found himself queuing for all the other tests and carefully ignoring the fact that he could not escape the indignity of shuffling off into the little store-room and filling the small glass vial with his own semen. At his age, he really ought to be more grown-up about it.

He cleared his throat and reached for his cloak, hanging on the peg on the back of the door.

"You can leave that here," smiled the Medi-witch, pleasantly.

"No, er," there was no excuse for blushing like a schoolboy, but it always happened regardless. He reached into the pocket for a brown paper parcel. "I, um, brought my own magazine. Last year they were all…"

"Oh yes. They were all full of naked females, I remember!" Her grin widened. "I must apologise once again for that dreadful oversight on our part, but we've learned from our mistake. I have personally ensured that is something more suited to your tastes in there, this time."

The uncooperative ground refused to oblige Remus by opening up and swallowing him. Dreading what he was going to find as the investigation team's interpretation of his 'taste', he made his way slowly down the corridor to the stuffy, windowless room. Slipping inside, he closed the door quickly behind him and looked around.

And burst out laughing.

"Something amuses you, Lupin?" Snape whispered seductively, draped elegantly in the tatty armchair, his long fingers steepled together in front of his face.

…….

"Did you plan this all along?" asked Remus incredulously, after handing the sample to a smug-looking Medi-witch. "I thought you were beta-reading Edith's conference speech notes all day. Or was that a cunning ruse to surprise me with medicinal fellatio?"

"Hush!" hissed Snape, glancing around him in case anyone else was in earshot as they walked slowly across the quadrangle towards the Singed Eyebrow. Never one for spontaneous outbursts of sociability, Snape forced himself to take a butterbeer in the Institute's pub once every few weeks, grimly aware that it was the best way to keep abreast of the latest potions developments. Not the edited versions published in the journals or newspapers, but the real, warts-, ulcers-, apocalypses-and-all stories. "I was summoned here to assist a colleague with a serious problem. As I knew you were undergoing your tests, I offered to stay on afterwards."

Unsurprisingly, given that it was Happy Hour with all drinks half-price, the Eyebrow was packed with students and staff, spilling out onto the terrace and into the street. Snape had only to take two limping steps into the saloon before the occupants of at least four tables had shot to their feet to offer him a seat. After all this time, it still warmed Remus' heart to see Severus getting the respect he deserved. Such small, everyday acts of recognition were more important in his book than the grandiose honours conferred by the Ministry or the IMP, though the metalware did look good, twinkling complacently in its cabinet. Severus had not been permitted to stand up or to buy his own drink anywhere within the Institute since the end of the war. Remus beamed as he watched his lover nod courteously at everyone in turn and ease himself into a chair in the centre of the room.

Seconds later, a young man with gladioli growing out of his nostrils deposited two beers in front of them. No one else in the room seemed to regard the floral accoutrement as being worthy of so much as a second glance.

"Thank you, Mr Dogflud, most kind of you," murmured Snape.

"Anytime, Professor," he replied, somewhat nasally.

"Have they made any progress on your affliction?" Severus waved a hand towards the flowers.

"We thought we had the right consistency for the celeriac suspension last weekend, but it just turned them purple," Dogflud grimaced.

"How unfortunate," commented Remus sympathetically. The young man looked at him with resignation.

"I'll say. I _hate_ purple," he sighed and sniffled away.

They sipped their drinks silently, eavesdropping on the outrageous conversations going on around them. Remus estimated that he understood roughly a quarter of what was being said, but Snape, of course, appeared to be memorising every snippet and filing it away for future reference, including the more salacious bits from the students' halls of residence.

"You can tell it's that time of the year again. Bloody werewolves everywhere," sneered a loud, female voice behind them. Snape spun round so fast his neck cracked like a botched apparition, only to find Team Wolf member Luna Flintoff grinning at them over a worryingly elaborate cocktail. She shook their hands and Snape rolled his eyes as she conjured a chair next to them and plonked herself heavily into it. "Bloody awful creatures, werewolves!"

"They're a bloody menace," agreed Remus cheerfully.

"Do not encourage her," warned Snape, who never seemed to find jokes about prejudice amusing, possible because he had regretted having held so many of his own in his youth. Luna cackled and blinked innocently back at him.

"I hear you were able to, ah, lend a hand for the testing today, Professor," she trilled.

The glare which answered her could have frozen Hades, but seemed to have no effect on the self-titled werebitch, who began visibly preparing another dig.

"How were your tests, Luna?" Remus interjected quickly. "Everything all right?"

"Oh, you know. Exhausting, humiliating, but over for another year, thank Merlin!" she drained her glass and leaned across the table conspiratorially. "I actually popped in to see if anyone knew why the Pigs were here earlier. Anything on the grapevine?"

"Aurors? Here?" asked Remus in surprise. Ministry personnel were pathologically reticent to set foot onto IMP property, finding the random explosions and the high concentration of Healing students too much for their sensitive reflexes. The Institute traditionally meted out its own discipline, usually twice as stringent as anyone else's, much to the Ministry's relief.

"None of it concerns you," stated Snape with finality, but no unkindness, staring into his pint. Remus found himself feeling faintly dizzy. The last thing Severus needed was another brush with witless ministry operatives with no idea how to let sleeping dragons lie, after his last awful run-in with the misguided young cretin, Phelps.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"For me, yes," he whispered.

Luna cleared her throat and looked at both of them in turn, registering the subtle tension which had gripped the atmosphere.

"Shall I push off?" she asked intuitively.

"Please," they replied in unison.

"Cool. I've got to check on Asif anyway. He inhaled some powdered horehound on Tuesday and has been acting a bit funny ever since," she left.

"Well?" asked Remus tentatively. "What happened?"

…….

Remus' beloved garden was not very peaceful that afternoon. The octurvice bush was squealing at a tatty-looking black crow which was apparently trying to eat its new buds, a muggle in some kind of motorised hang-glider was buzzing around overhead and a pair of gnomes were having a fist-fight in the far corner of the lawn, enthusiastically cheered on by a handful of their friends. He lay down on the stone bench and closed his eyes, trying to tune out the general antagonism while he digested Severus' earlier explanation.

One of St Mungo's research Healers, Wendy Suhthe, had been arrested by aurors while fine-tuning her Silver-Standard thesis on Incantation-Activated Antidotes. The premise of the paper was that those at risk of poisoning, for example, snake-handlers or certain types of potion brewer, could take a general antidote in advance, which would then lie dormant in their system until they uttered a charm to activate it. It was a very delicate cross-discipline study, researched jointly with the IMP and the Charm School in Galway, but one she considered hugely important as tests had shown that an antidote which had already been absorbed into the body was up to seven times more effective than one administered post-contamination.

The problem was that someone at the Ministry had read her article on the subject in Alchemical Almanac and decided that Incantation-Activated Potions fell into the category of Dark Magic.

"What?" Remus had gaped across the pub table. "How can it be illegal to try and prevent the accidental death of at-risk groups?"

"Lupin, I am by turns enchanted and irritated by your unfailing naïveté," Snape had strengthened the muffling charm around their table and explained as patiently as possible. "While Suhthe is publishing research into ways to activate dormant substances in the body for laudable ends, her methodology may also be used for more sinister purposes." He looked truly uncomfortable now, and Remus heartily wished that he could spare his lover the annoyance of having to explain further.

"Sorry, Severus, but I still don't understand," he had been forced to confess.

Snape took off his glasses and rubbed his fists into his eyes – such an oddly informal gesture for the habitually stiff man to make in public that it turned Remus light-headed with concern again. Sitting up straight, Snape replaced the spectacles and closed off all facial expression, falling naturally into lecture mode.

"I am referring to _poison_, Lupin," he had stated crisply. "Imagine how easy it would be to make a victim ingest a noxious substance which had no effect on the system until a certain word was spoken. One could wait days, months, years even, before the keyword was uttered. It would be virtually impossible to discover when the toxin had been administered, therefore impossible to narrow down a workable list of suspects."

"That's terrible!" Remus exclaimed. "Why do people always manage to use good ideas to do bad things?"

"Human nature," Snape had replied, almost inaudibly.

And it was human nature, Remus reflected later, in the warm sunshine of his little garden, which meant that Healer Suhthe was not the first to come up with the idea. According to Snape, a substantial body of work on the subject had been discovered in Hungary in the mid eighteenth century and carefully destroyed. Obliterating the written word was a simple enough process for governments, but controlling the thought processes of intelligent witches and wizards was quite another matter. The idea would surely surface again, perhaps in another place, another age. Knowledge will out.

"What will happen to Wendy?" Remus had asked at last.

"Obliviation, I expect," he had snarled. "Years of research wasted. She will not gain Silver Standard for a decade, if she has to begin again from scratch on another branch of antidotology."

"Isn't there any other way?" The werewolf had always loathed the idea of Obliviation. Stealing a person's private thoughts seemed a complete violation of human rights, he hated the idea of the Ministry poking around inside heads as a method of control.

"Yes," Snape had given his most chilling smirk. "The Hungarian authorities did not simply obliviate their clever potions master."

"They killed him," Remus had guessed. Severus leaned over the table, so that his lover could see the sparks of anger and disgust seething in the black depths of his eyes. His damaged voice had faded to an echo of a rasp.

"Something like that," he had intoned.

Remus had found that breathing was suddenly not as easy as it should be. He loved Severus dearly, truly, madly, deeply; yet very occasionally he found that the darker wizard still had the power to frighten him. No, not frighten, he corrected himself, merely disconcert. Severus Snape was a good man, who had performed brave and selfless acts for the Light - but one could not discount the catalogue of evil which the sweet werewolf knew his lover must have perpetrated, without being aware of the exact details. The knowledge that he shared a bed with a man who had probably committed more than one murder lay against his skin like the faint scars remaining on his neck from his silver-burn, a fact whose significance had decreased over time, yet could never be completely erased.

He suspected that Snape's tremendous act of willpower in bringing himself back from the Dark was one of the aspects of the enigmatic man he most admired.

The octurvice gave a shriek of such misery that Remus was jolted back to reality. A short burst of sparks from his wand sent the hungry crow flapping up into the air with an indignant squawk, leaving the magical bush alone to make sneering sound of triumph. Remus sighed and turned his attention to the gnomes, who fled through his begonia patch back to their burrows, trampling as many blooms as they could manage on the way. He was almost relieved to head back indoors when he heard the floo flaring.

Severus' bad leg folded as he stepped out into the room, leaving him sitting disdainfully on the hearthrug in a controlled heap.

"Whoops-a-daisy," said Remus cheerfully, loving the man even more for his ability to fall over with style.

"Bollocks," croaked Snape, with venom.

They manoeuvred carefully over to a chair with the help of the stick and a little magic. Remus was straightening up to go and organise some tea when Snape grabbed hold of his hand and kissed it.

"I apologise for my sharpness earlier," the potions master whispered.

"No need," Remus smiled, squeezing his hand in reassurance. "You know I understand the feeling of being frustrated with the Ministry."

"For once, I actually agree with their decision," the admission seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"You do?" Remus was incredulous. It was second-nature for him to automatically assume the bureaucrats were up to no good and he felt slightly ruffled to have Severus sticking up for them now.

"They are correct in their decision to suppress this information," he insisted. "How am I to explain? Suppose an academic had invented the Cruciatus curse for theoretical purposes only - let us say he wanted to prove that it could be done. Would you consider that single innocent person's death worthwhile, to spare of the rest of wizardkind the misery which would ensue, once unscrupulous people realised the potential of a one-word torture curse?"

Feeling like a NEWT level student again, Remus wondered how it would have felt to be one of Severus' pupils, with those intelligent eyes scrutinising your face for signs of comprehension. Pretty damned scary, Harry and his contemporaries had claimed. He focussed on the question, unable to stop visualising it as an essay title at the top of a very long piece of blank parchment.

"The intentions of the inventor would make no difference," Remus spoke slowly, mindful of the earlier barb about his naïveté. "Once the spell had been published, there would be no way of controlling its use. He would have to be silenced and his work confiscated before he managed to share the knowledge with anyone else."

"Precisely," Snape smirked, "Personally, I would kill him, vanish all his papers and burn the workshop to the ground."

A shocked bark of laughter escaped Remus's throat before he could stop it.

"It would be the most thorough option," his lover scowled coldly, his expression distant as he pondered the hypothetical scenario. "Naturally, the idea would surface again, but it could take centuries, during which time the populace would be safe from the horror of the curse."

"But you wouldn't kill Wendy Suhthe, surely?" Remus wondered why he wasn't feeling some kind of revulsion for this wizard, who calmly discussed homicide as a justifiable method of censorship. Quite the opposite, in fact. Suddenly needing to be closer to his lover, he sat on the arm of the chair and carded his dry, gardener's fingers through the black and white strands of hair, almost compulsively.

"I have no personal quarrel with the woman," Snape whispered, too deep in theory to acknowledge the caress. "But her study must be stopped. No one should know how to..."

He made a nasal sound of surprise as Remus kissed him, unable to restrain himself any longer. In the werewolf's opinion, Severus was at his sexiest when radiating with fierce intelligence and the dangerously calm ruthlessness which Remus was certain would have been enough to raise him as a dark lord in his own right. Remembering the respectful faces in the Singed Eyebrow, falling over themselves to offer him small, commonplace honours, Remus had a vision of a world ruled by Severus Snape, sultry and just on a gilded throne.

As things stood, however, Snape had only one subject in his thrall, but one who was ready to follow him to the death if need be.

Ignoring the familiar ache he referred to as growing-old-pains beginning to throb in his upper arm, Remus allowed his hand to burrow through the many layers of his lover's black robes.

"What is this in aid of, Lupin?" purred Severus, finally reengaging with the common plane of existence.

"You lent me a hand earlier," he chuckled. "It's only right that I return the favour."

"I see," he hummed approvingly. "You must be relieved to have all that business over for another year."

"Oh, Merlin, yes!" said Remus. "I think buying that porn magazine was even more embarrassing than the thought of, er, using it! I never, ever want to see the dreadful thing again."

"Ah yes, where did you put that, incidentally," asked Snape, glancing around the room as though expecting it to be proudly displayed on the coffee table.

"It's still in my cloak pocket, I think," he replied, halting his ministrations for a moment. "Why?"

"Did you look at it?"

The glint in the black eyes was unmistakable, even when filtered through the glass of his heavy-rimmed spectacles.

"No," said Remus slowly, feeling the colour rise to his face. "Do you think we should?"

"I am a scientist, Lupin. My mind is of an inquisitive bent." There was something so filthy about his breathy pronunciation of the word 'bent' that the other wizard gave an involuntary whimper.

"Ought I to go and fetch it?"

"Purely in the interests of acquiring new knowledge," drawled the scholar, smirking.

Remus made it to the cloak-stand and back in less than ten seconds. Perhaps it was worth a glance, after all.

…….

AN: Thank you for reading another silly chapter of fluff! Just a reminder, Luna Flintoff is nothing to do with Luna Lovegood (the HP character with the James Bond name), it's just a perfect name for a female werewolf.

Thanks to Excessivelyperky for inspiring the bit about the clinic! Everyone should read 'The Birthday Present', by the way – you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll put a pitchfork through the picture of Dumbledore on the cover of HBP.

Love SN x


	7. Long Lost Property

Author's Note: Malfoy was dead, to begin with.

Hee hee, I always wanted to start a fic with that! No, there will be no supernatural activity in this chapter, I am merely reminding my lovely readers that this is a kind of sequel to my 'Salvage What you Can', in which Lucius Malfoy died in mysterious circumstances in prison, shortly before his execution was supposed to take place. And shortly after his final visit from Severus. Remus has always had strange, irrational feelings about the whole business.

There is a little sadness/angst mixed in with the fluff this time. I hope no one thinks I am dealing insensitively with a tragic subject, but this story is not about Harry, it's about Snape and Lupin. Harry only speaks the way he does because he's thought of every platitude under the sun and already drawn his own conclusions. This chapter is dedicated to my very brave friends H and G, who were third time lucky this summer! Yay!

Why do medical test results always seem to take ages to come?

…….

At noon on a glorious summer day, the normally turbulent seas around Lamorna were rolling gently towards the beach, as though crashing violently like proper Cornish waves cost far too much effort in this kind of heat.

A thin, bespectacled man, whose bright white hair was occasionally striped through with contrasting black streaks, was standing motionless about two yards offshore. His tailored black trousers were rolled up above one knobbly knee and one mutilated kneecap, though the cuffs of his white shirt remained formally in place at his wrists. At odds with the rest of his very correct attire - and his matching stern expression of concentration - was the faded and fraying Panama sunhat shading the strangely pale face from the midday sun. In his right hand was a sort of fishing net on the end of a long bamboo cane, which he kept fixed three inches above the surface of the water, held as immovably rigid as his body.

In a pink and white striped deckchair a little further along the sand, another man was dividing his time between dozing and reading short chapters from a paperback novel. His grey hair and moustache gave him a positively scruffy air compared to his silent companion, though the short-sleeved tee-shirt and khaki shorts were far more appropriate beachwear than the other's immaculate garb.

The second man, letting his book fall onto his chest so he could stretch out his arms until all the joints had clicked satisfactorily, cleared his throat and called out:

"Severus, I think you should have a break. Your knee might seize up."

The first man scowled and pulled a magic wand from the waistband of his trousers. One flick conjured a shape in the air like a cartoon speech-bubble above his head, and letters began to form inside it. In a fine copperplate script, they spelled out:

"_Quiet, Lupin, you are scaring away the jellyfish_."

"You've been out there for ages now and you haven't caught any at all!" The other man said with a sigh.

The first written message dissolved and was replaced with a second.

"_That is not surprising, given the obnoxious din you insist on making_."

"Din?" gaped Lupin. "I've been quiet as a mouse!"

"_Hush_," the word wrote itself in the air. "_If you cannot control your…" _The speech tailed off and the man in the water stared intently at something apparently drifting near his feet. His companion watched open-mouthed as his whole body tensed like a cobra on the attack.

There was a little 'sploosh' as the net plunged into the sea.

The bubble still floating above the oblivious black and white head spelled out "_Gotcha!_"

…….

Remus had been right about his lover's bad knee suffering from such a long period of standing in the water. Severus was leaning heavily on him as they made their way along the scorched and dusty footpath back to the Gatehouse, but his face bore the triumphant smirk of the successful hunter. A galvanised bucket hovered a few inches ahead of them, containing the squashy prey and a few inches of seawater; the deckchair trotting merrily behind.

They awkwardly slopped, clattered, limped and sweated their way around the last curve, relieved to be almost home, when Remus heard Severus snatch a sharp intake of breath. A man was sitting on the ground in the only patch of midday shade, leaning against the stone wall enclosing the house's front garden. The centuries-old deterrents which had protected the old Snape ancestral property normally kept all muggle passers-by at bay and, though the surly former spy had many more friendly magical connections now than ever before, even the closest of them would hesitate before arriving unannounced into his domain.

Remus felt his heart hammering like a drum-roll. Severus' wand was poised for action and both men tensed for trouble in the painful few seconds before the intruder turned to look in their direction, squinted beneath his hand for a moment then waved.

"Harry!" called Lupin, with palpable relief.

"Hello!" The young man jumped up and ran to support Snape's other side. Snape scowled and fussed for a second before permitting himself to be helped with a grunt which was half irritation and half gratitude. "What's in the bucket, Severus? Urgh, it looks really slimy."

"Really slimy and really _deadly_," whispered the invalid emphatically, not longer using the subtitle spell now he had finished stalking unsuspecting coelenterates. Harry glanced worriedly at Remus. Remus shrugged.

"There was an article in the muggle newspaper about the heatwave bringing all kinds of exotic marine life to the Western shores of the country," the werewolf explained dismissively. "There are lots of nasty, poisonous visitors swimming around out there this summer and Severus wanted to go and meet some of them."

Snape's black eyes glittered with a suppressed exhilaration which bordered on slight mania. Harry gulped.

The strange convoy went straight through the little house and out to the garden, where Josty the elf installed everyone in a shady gazebo with a jug of fresh lemonade. After flopping onto the benches and, in Remus' case, mopping their brows and taking deep breaths to dispel light-headedness, Harry cleared his throat.

"Severus, I'm sorry to turn up on your doorstep like this," he looked pensive. For the first time, Remus noticed dark circles underneath his eyes, which seemed smaller and duller than usual, as though he had been crying.

"What is it?" he placed a hand on the young man's arm.

"Should I leave?" asked Severus, in his quiet, damaged voice. He levitated the bucket containing his new pet and made as if to stand.

"You don't have to," said Harry. "I don't mind you knowing this, but you might not want to listen to me whinging." Snape put the bucket down again, firmly believing that the motto 'knowledge is power' was a good excuse for enjoying the latest gossip.

"Harry?" Remus prompted, hating to see his almost-godson upset. After clearing his throat again, Harry began.

"For about two years now, Hazel and I have been trying for a baby," he said flatly. Remus' eyebrows shot up, but Severus nodded as though he had suspected as much. "I know it can be a while before it happens, but it seemed to take forever and got really frustrating."

"Though not entirely unpleasant, I trust," added the potions master, with the ghost of a smirk.

"Well, yes, there are worse duties to fulfil," he smiled quickly, before becoming glum once more. "Then six weeks ago we thought we'd managed it. I've never seen her so excited, dancing around the room and just glowing with happiness. We both were, actually, I thought I was finally going to get to be part of a real family. To know someone I'm genetically related to who doesn't hate me. It was an amazing feeling - I'm sure we almost burst with joy at various times - but then, late last night…" He buried his face in his hands.

Snape silently bowed his head.

"She lost the baby," Remus finished for him. Harry nodded and his shoulders spasmed in a single sob. "Oh, Harry," Remus pulled him into a tight hug, as tears pooled in his own eyes. "I'm so sorry. So sorry."

They clung together for a long time before Harry was able to pull away. He accepted Severus' handkerchief, offered with wordless but genuine sympathy. He wiped his face and put on a resolute expression.

"I know it's not the end of the world, that we can try again, that these things happen and it was very early to be taking things for granted," he said quickly, "But no one else seems to have any problems. There are babies everywhere at the moment, for God's sake, even people who aren't ready are getting pregnant. Why not us? Why did ours die? It just doesn't feel fair!"

The older couple looked at each other, allowing Remus to read the unasked question on his lover's face and silently agree. Both knew that Snape was out of his depth here, for all the post-war goodwill he bore towards Harry and his muggle girlfriend. Expressing a degree of emotion when alone with Lupin was something he had learned over time, actively offering his services as counsellor or shoulder to cry on for an emotional young Potter was still way beyond his realm of expertise. He carefully levered himself up and made for his laboratory, clutching the bucket, pausing in confusion for a moment as he realised that some word or gesture was required before leaving. He frowned in thought, then leaned over and placed a kiss on the top of Harry's messy head, as he had seen Molly Weasley do a hundred times.

Despite his watery eyes, Remus smiled.

…….

Being the resilient, optimistic young man that he was, Harry refused to allow the unhappy incident to keep him down for long. Hazel girded herself with the support of her large family and an unexpected award for excellence in a research project at work, and tried to look to the future each time a comment about babies made in ignorance, or hormone imbalances upset her. It would be hard for them, Remus knew, but he trusted that their relationship was strong enough to see them through.

…….

By the end of the summer, the results of the latest worldwide lycanthropy test series were no closer to being made public, the punishingly hot weather showed no signs of abating, and Severus had assembled an extensive collection of alarming jellyfish.

Remus had slowly watched his lovely garden in Derbyshire shrivel and die, as even the professional irrigation spells he had learned from Neville stuttered and failed in the heat. Unable to bear the scene of destruction, he was spending more and more time at Severus' Cornish home. The sea breezes kept the air moving, even if he was too nervous of water-borne dangers to do much swimming, and disinclined to climb down the awkward path to the beach since he had tried it one afternoon and felt dizzy from the heat and exertion. He found it very refreshing to drag Severus away from his slippery friends and head out to the cliffs in the cool of the evening, to watch the sun set together.

Like some desert creature, Remus now came alive at dusk.

"What have you been doing today?" asked Severus as they sat on their usual rock, eating fish and chips straight from the paper, balanced soggily on their knees.

"Oh, same old thing," he answered vaguely, watching a handful of gulls bobbing apathetically on the waves. "Sleeping, reading, sleeping some more."

"I see," he precisely skewered a pair of mushy peas on the prongs of his disposable chipfork. "So I am to expect another night of unrelenting sexual demands upon my person as you burn off all that excess energy."

"Indeed you are," Remus grinned charmingly and waggled his eyebrows. Snape rolled his eyes and impaled more peas. "And you, Severus. How was your day?"

"Unproductive. I spent most of it endeavouring to repair a leak in Isabel's tank."

"Isabel?" Lupin paused, a piece of haddock stalled on his fork halfway between lap and mouth.

"Yes, Isabel. My Physalia physalis," the same blank stare forced Snape to translate. "Portuguese man o'war. The one with the extremely long tentacles. I ought to check on her when we get home. It would be a setback if anything untoward happened."

Remus ate his fish, amused that the stern scientist had named his gloopy invertebrates. None of the former Hogwarts students who had fallen foul of his temper would be able to rekindle the old myth that Professor Snape had no heart. As if to reinforce the idle thought, Snape stopped eating and looked intently at him.

"Would Harry consider it improper if I suggested some potions for assisting conception?" Remus recognised the tone of that echoing whisper at once. This question had been debated long and hard in the privacy of Severus' head before being brought into the open.

"I honestly don't know," he answered. "It's only been a few weeks since the miscarriage, so maybe it's a bit soon. Hazel's not a witch, would that stop a potion from working?"

"There is one I remember being mentioned in my first year at the Institute, which focuses on the inherent magic of a wizard rather than the more common fertility draughts which target the witch," he grew thoughtful. "Perhaps I could find it and make the suggestion in a few months' time. After Christmas, perhaps. Or do you believe it is none of my business?"

A bark of laughter from his partner intensified the concern on his face. Despite all his achievements during the war and beyond, the fear of mockery remained very near the surface of Snape's fragile self-esteem. Remembering this, Remus hastened to explain himself.

"Whoever would have expected it? You actively helping to produce more Potters!" he teased. Snape visibly relaxed and stuck his tongue out.

"Another generation of the little dunderheads will not affect me. Just don't tell Minerva I was in any way responsible for bringing more chaos into her castle," he added conspiratorially.

It was almost dark by the time they returned to the Gatehouse.

The repairs to Isabel's tank were holding up when they went to check. Remus had hoped they would be able to go straight to bed, but the sight of the creature bobbing around in his precious laboratory proved too great a temptation for Snape.

"I should like to make one last try at extracting the essence of the poison," he decided.

"Severus!" sighed Remus in annoyance. "You already have!"

"Not in its entirety," he had moved to the work bench and was already donning his apron. "Before the crisis with the tank happened, I found a long-lost spell by a Portuguese witch which should preserve the venom in its original state, without depreciating its magical properties."

A little voice inside Remus' head was demanding to know _why _this was necessary, but experience suggested that he ought not to ask, such questions earning him either a glare or an in-depth, Gold Standard explanation of the entire discipline of Potions involved, taking anything up to two hours.

"Do you need help with the spell?" he asked at last, hoping that he could at least hurry the process along.

"Yes, actually," came the surprising reply. "It would be a great help if you went to the library and fetched my Portuguese dictionary of magical vocabulary."

Remus made his way to Severus' magically extended library, which he liked to keep well away from the laboratory in case of accidents. The place was so well warded against theft, summoning, flood and fire that it took him fifteen minutes of passwords and counter-charms before he even dared touch the doorknob. Eventually, the wards grudgingly granted him entrance and the door slowly opened with a menacing rattle. The uplifting smell of books hit Remus in the face, making him smile.

This place completely enchanted him. Leather, dust, paper, wooden shelves and the very slight white-noise buzzing of preservation spells from wooden floor to artificially high ceiling never failed to leave the impression that knowledge lurked all around him. A battered manuscript with engraved metal corners and sharp decorative studs all over the cover began shuffling towards him and he watched it with amused interest until he realised that it was the 12th century Bavarian masterwork on the vanquishing of dark creatures, and that the decorations were all pure silver. It also smelled faintly of garlic. Not sure how to protect himself without damaging the book, he looked around for another volume which he could use to threaten it with. Nothing in the vicinity looked helpful.

"Ridiculous," he murmured to himself. "This is the Snape library, there should be hundreds of Dark Arts books here!"

The manuscript was sliding closer. The werewolf caught himself cowering and laughed, straightening up. The thing was only eight inches long and about five thick. It had no business trying to 'vanquish' an adult male werewolf on its own, even if full moon was days away. He squared his shoulders, clenched his fists, took a deep breath and growled.

The book froze. Remus watched as it considered its next move. When it stayed still, he took a step towards it and growled again. It slid back by almost two feet. Feeling in equal parts silly for threatening a book, and smug for frightening what was obviously a rather tough and Moody-esque volume, he hurried over to the language section to get on with his errand.

Enormous dictionaries sat next to smaller grammar texts; compendia of Potions terminology in French, Swahili, Malay, Mandarin, Japanese, Danish, Cornish and a score of other idioms nestled next to their counterparts in Charms, Runes, Arithmancy and Dark Arts. Remus couldn't help but stare open-mouthed at the world of words stretching upwards before him. He spotted the Portuguese magi-dictionary without too much effort, just above the limit of his reach on the sixth level of shelves. He fetched the ladder from its home near the entrance, throwing out a growl as he passed the place where he had last seen the Bavarian manuscript, just to make sure.

He didn't much care for the creaking wooden ladder, in fact, lifting it had reactivated the old familiar twinge in his upper arm, so he only climbed the bottom two rungs and stretched up to pull the book down. It was so tightly wedged into place that it took a sharp jerk to dislodge it. As he did so, another book slipped from the shelf and landed with a papery splat on the floor, its pages splayed loosely in the dust. Remus put the dictionary down and picked up the smaller book, swearing at his own clumsiness.

Oddly, the book had no cover. It was a rather small Magyar to English Potions dictionary, with a lot of loose leaves. He shuffled them together, hoping that the damage wasn't a result of the fall, when he noticed a sheet of writing paper tucked inside. It wasn't until after he read it that he wondered whether he had any right to read the items of correspondence in Severus's house, but it was too late by then. The elegant but somehow rushed script said:

_S,_

_Here you go, 'borrowed' from the Old Man's library. I sliced off the cover and filled it with newspaper, so there's no gap on the shelf. He'll never notice it's missing._

_For God's sake be careful! I mean it._

_L._

L. Lucius, obviously. Remus slid the letter back inside the dictionary and pushed it back onto the shelf, feeling the slight tremor he always did when Malfoy was mentioned. It was not that he was jealous of a dead man, exactly, especially as he had no reason to believe Severus was ever the wealthy wizard's lover. It was probably more to do with the thought of Severus being close friends with such a deadly, ruthless, cruel and murderous villain for so many years. Though perhaps 'friends' was the wrong definition too. There were many things which the alumni of Slytherin house liked to keep secret, not least the complicated system of alliance and hierarchy that lasted into adulthood and often right up to the highest levels of Ministry life.

Not for the first time, Remus found he was grateful for being a Gryffindor, where life was usually quite simple, honest and open. If you liked someone, you hung around with them. If not, you didn't. Peter Pettigrew's face then swam before his eyes, crazed and deadly, wrapping his silver hand around his old friend's neck the night Harry killed Voldemort and he forced his brain to stop thinking about Gryffindor.

"Not black and white," he reminded himself. "Never black and white."

He left the library with the Portuguese dictionary under his arm, carefully resetting the wards, though Severus would probably come down before bed and re-do them, not trusting him to get it right. Breathing heavily, possibly due to a combination of unpleasant memories and dust, he made his way to the lab and deposited the book on a bench, earning a grunt of thanks from the potions master, leaning intently over his jellyfish tanks.

"I'm off to bed," he said. "Don't be too long, will you?"

Another grunt.

…….

Remus lay in bed and stared at he ceiling, unable to dislodge the memory of Malfoy's scribbled note.

He had taken, '_borrowed',_ the book from his father's, _'the Old Man's'_, library. Then he had skinned it, put the binding back so as not to leave a telltale gap, very cunning, very Slytherin. Lucius must have held Snape in high regard to rob his own father on his behalf. Or perhaps they had been working on a very important project and such underhand methods of finding books suggested it was nothing to do with Hogwarts or the Institute of Master Potioners. Remus knew he would never be able to ask.

His eyelids drooped and his thoughts became more random, swirling around jellyfish, mushy peas, the fierce dark creature text, Malfoy Manor, the Magyar language, which ought to mean something but who knew what?, Severus was going to help Harry and Hazel have a baby, he had never visited Portugal, Magyar Magyar, what was it?, Magyar Manor, when was the werewolf investigation group going to release the test results, jellyfish, babies, jelly babies, mmm sweets.

'_For God's sake be careful! I mean it.' _Malfoy was concerned for Severus' safety over whatever it was they were working on.

The last thing which occurred to him as he drifted into the land of nod was how very, very unexpected it was that Lucius Malfoy had believed in God.

…….


	8. Damage to Property

Author's note: Hello! Been a while, hasn't it? I know I said that this story wouldn't have a plot or be anything less than a fun piece of fluffy slash fun, but I got intrigued… 

Beware: angst and references to previous chapters. Thank you x

…….

The Institute of Master Potioners is located on Salisbury Plain, deep within the no-go area which is set aside by muggles for testing their military forces.

From the Ministry of Magic's point of view, this is an excellent way to cover the strange happenings and frequent explosions caused by the young or experimental brewers, as any Wiltshire residents observing strange phenomena - plagues of giraffes, rivers of treacle and the like - are bound to attribute the oddities to the development of exciting new weapons. It takes a rather exceptional catastrophe to make the stoic locals turn more than a hair.

From the point of view of the military muggles themselves, there is a persistent error with the mapping of one of the corners of Sector 66 which means that a tank will never be exactly where you think it ought to be, much to the delight of one or two Sergeant Majors who enjoy roasting young troops alive for minor misdemeanours such as getting lost while on a manoeuvres and returning with a few more fingers than when they left. They are also discouraged from openly discussing any unusual clouds of silver smoke, which upon closer inspection turn out to be a large shoal of mackerel on flying bicycles.

The Institute of Master Potioners has no view. It really doesn't give a tinker's cuss as long as Dint's is well stocked with enough melt-proof cauldrons to conduct practical experiments, and The Singed Eyebrow supplied with enough beer to give rise to plenty of exotic theories on the fallacy of the phrase 'melt-proof' afterwards.

Though volumes abound on the work and achievements which have taken place within the reinforced walls down the centuries, no fellow of the institute has ever bothered to compile anything resembling a handbook to its physical buildings. The general view is that there are more important things to do with one's time than constructing some kind of equivalent to 'Hogwarts: A History'; not to mention the unspoken belief that if a new student or visiting professor is stupid enough to encounter one of the more _interesting_ occurrences on campus and be unable to extricate his or herself from the situation, then…well. The IMP has no interest in dunderheads. There is a sign to that effect outside the front gates. Just below the one which proclaims that the IMP accepts no responsibility for any theft, accidental damage to property, loss of life or limb or commencement of the Apocalypse occurring upon its premises and no correspondence whatsoever will be entered into, as frankly, everyone has better things to do. Below that is the one that says The Institute Welcomes Careful Geniuses.

Severus Snape had no need of a manual to safely navigate the campus. Paying attention to the stories of other brewers and his own natural wariness had assured that he very seldom suffered any serious molestation. It being the 22nd of October, he automatically gave Gamma Block a wide berth. Each year, on the anniversary of Morag Togglehatchett's investigation into the reactivity of sodium with a certain concentration of tincture of calendric fireweed - her very last investigation - the largest suite of laboratories had a greater propensity than usual for having its roof blown clean off. The roof itself nearly always reappeared in the short-stay car park of Salisbury train station a few days later, but falling tiles could cause a bother in the meantime.

He also noticed, without much interest, that a red flag bearing the initials "V.C." was flying over Omega Block. This was the specially constructed domain of the legendary Vesuvius Crump, who had earned the nickname "Stumpy" on account of the extent to which his relentless experimentation had damaged his own body. As he had also caused considerable damage to the bodies of innocent bystanders on several previous occasions, he was now required to display a signal each time he began brewing so that other potioners stood a sporting chance of escaping with their lives. He was also required to notify the IMP medi-magical department - known as the Mosaic-ers, on account of their skills at putting tiny little pieces back together again - before setting foot inside a lab. Just to give them time to _prepare_, really.

Snape kept an eye on both danger areas as he limped along, trying not to feel so relieved that his seminar with the only bronze-standard student he was mentoring this year was over for another fortnight. He was almost certain that he had never been so ignorant, arrogant and just downright annoying at that age. The youngsters of today, he mused, had no concept of hard work, expecting everything to just be handed to them on a platter. He was certain that at bronze level he had done twice as much study as well as managing to fight the first round of the war, for Merlin's sake. Though he no longer grumbled that part to any of the students, just in case any more of them had taken the new, improved, more relevant History of Magic NEWT and reminded him that at their age, he had actually been fighting for the wrong side.

Revolting know-it-all brats, every last one of them.

His muttering was interrupted by a shout from across the courtyard, and he turned to see Asif from the werewolf research detail, Team Wolf, dashing towards him, ample flesh wobbling as flung himself forwards with unfamiliar haste.

"Good afternoon," whispered Snape leisurely, to give the younger man time to catch his breath.

"You have to come," wheezed Asif, clutching at a stitch his side. "Luna sent me to find you!"

"Really, Mr Khan," drawled Snape, imagining from the urgent look in Asif's eyes that Team Wolf's most unstable member had got himself all worked up into a frenzy again. "If Mr Botham is having another of his turns, I imagine the Mosaicers will be only too happy to…"

"No, professor!" panted Asif. "It's not Tony. He's off on that chupacabra observation expedition until next month. This is more important. Please come to Luna's office!"

Sighing heavily, Snape made his way slowly to the lair of the lycanthropologists, wondering what kind of mess they had managed to conjure this time. Some trouble with the Ministry, perhaps, or an attack on one of their pet theories by another potions master, nothing really grave enough to necessitate postponing the nice cup of tea in the Senior Common Room which he had been looking forward to for the past hour.

It was only when he entered the office that he realised something very serious indeed was going on. The team's leader, Luna Flintoff, was ashen-faced, sitting on the floor and staring at a bundle of papers in front of her with wide, unseeing eyes.

"What happened?" rasped Snape, first to Luna, who didn't respond, then again to Asif, who rubbed nervously at the back of his neck and pointed to the parchment. "What is that? What does it say?" he snapped impatiently, then, still getting no answer, summoned the top sheet and read it himself. "The results of the annual worldwide wolfsbane user medical survey?" He glanced uncomprehendingly from Asif to Luna and back again. "Oh, for Merlin's sake, will somebody please explain all this drama?"

Finally coming out of her horrified trance, the werebitch bit her bottom lip and looked up at Snape with an expression of despair most alien to her cheery disposition.

"Oh, Severus! This is awful. What the bloody hell are we going to do?"

…….

A short floo journey north of Salisbury Plain, Remus and Hermione were taking a gentle stroll around the Albus Dumbledore memorial gardens, occasionally throwing up a hasty shielding spell when the Sirius Black memorial fountain decided to try and give them a soaking.

"That thing's a menace," huffed Hermione, glaring at the carved stonework as another sudden jet of water flew high above their heads and showered them with raindrops. Remus grinned without saying anything, always deriving a sort of nostalgic amusement from the fountain's antics. Severus, he knew for a fact, would not set foot in this part of the garden since the unfortunate incident at the winter solstice festival which, but for the administration of several excellent potions, could have landed him with hypothermia.

"Have you told Harry yet?" Remus continued as they hurried to try to get out of soaking range.

"I really don't know how to," she sighed. "He and Hazel have had so many false alarms and a couple of miscarriages, I'll feel really bad having to tell him that despite not being anywhere near ready for a baby, I seem to have been cursed with what he wants so desperately!"

"Cursed!" exclaimed Remus. "Now, you don't mean that."

"That's how it feels at the moment," she flopped down onto a stone bench and folded her arms across her chest. "I'm sure it will be wonderful when the time comes, glorious fulfilment of my womanly self, blah-blah, but for now the only thing I can think of is how different my life is going to be. Justin's had this permanent little-boy-lost look about him since we found out, and things weren't great between us beforehand. I doubt he's going to last the distance."

"Men just need time to come to terms with things, that's all," Remus tried not to sound too trite. "He'll warm to the idea and so will you. I think you might still be a bit upset about your parents…"

"That's what the wretched Weasleys keep saying!" The young witch was exasperated and Remus wished he knew the right thing to say. "I'm not a child and I haven't lived at home for years, not since I was eleven, really. It's very sad that my parents have decided to divorce at the age of fifty-nine and I wish it hadn't had to happen, but I'm not having a nervous breakdown because of it! People change, get new interests, fall in love with other people."

"And your dad isn't upset about your mother moving in with Joyce?" Muggleborns always seemed to feel the need to remind him that the wizarding world was very different from the muggle one, taking umbrage at the most innocent of comments, and laughing at the naivety of others. He could never keep track of what subjects were socially acceptable anymore.

"What? Oh, the lesbian thing. No, he's fine with it. There are a few of his friends at the golf club in the same boat. They normally go out with a twenty-five year old for a year or so in order to prove their manliness, then get over it," she grabbed a stray lock of frizzy hair which had blown in her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. "In fact, the dental nurse who always flutters her eyelashes at him at the surgery is twenty-five…"

"Blonde?" Remus asked.

"Yes. And giggly. Oh dear," she gave a kind of resigned smirk. "Poor Dad doesn't really stand a chance, does he?"

Remus had to admit that Ken Granger was entering his mid-life crisis rather later than most, but his daughter seemed to think he would survive. Despite her protests to the contrary, he knew that the divorce was having some effect on Hermione, especially when coupled with the dread chemicals he dared not mention in her presence - hormones. An adult though she undoubtedly was, it was rotten luck to have to deal with two great upheavals at the same time.

Not wanting to upset her by saying the wrong thing, Remus steered the conversation to safer topics. Hermione was now chief librarian at St Mungo's research library, relishing the challenge of managing millennia of information so that she could put her hands on any reference from any topic demanded by the staff, at a moment's notice. It wasn't that she hadn't enjoyed working as a healer, it was rather a case of the day-to-day business of healing lacking the excitement and intellectual stimulation she had come to expect after her dramatic school life.

Her most recent assignment had been to search the records for an alternative to skele-grow for Marcus Flint's unfortunate daughter, who turned out to be allergic to the bone-replacing potion following an horrific Quidditch accident at Hogwarts. Hermione had chased the use of a rare temperamental breeze-herb from is first mention in the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, through to medieval Spain, where a witch was reported to have apparated out of the hands of the Inquisition while they questioned her for allegedly regrowing her cousin's severed foot by using a herbal poultice; to an unconfirmed muggle newspaper article in Mongolia in the 1870's, claiming that a man had given his neighbour a cup of herbal tea which caused him to sprout three extra arms. Her evidence had been enough to convince the ordinary healers to give the old-fangled idea a try, and so far, the procedure was progressing tolerably well.

"I love what I do, though it can be annoying occasionally when you get on the trail of something really interesting and revolutionary, only to find the most crucial parts of the documents are missing," she sighed.

"You mean, they were destroyed during experiments?" Remus' thoughts were on the brewers at the Institute, who occasionally caused disaster.

"No, it's usually down to censorship; when some politician decides that a new development is too dangerous to society, or - hah! - in danger of undermining their personal business interests. I'm thinking particularly of all the diseases caused by smoking sloughwort - a handful of students discovered the link in about 1725, but their evidence was destroyed because the Minister of Magic's family had the largest sloughwort farm in Europe and they would have been ruined. It took 100 years before anyone else thought to investigate and the cover-up came to light," she explained. "Makes you wonder what other ideas have been completely eradicated."

Remembering his conversation with Severus about incantation-activated potions, Remus explained the predicament of Wendy Suthe, who had been working on a special method of increasing the efficiency of poison antidotes, only to have the Ministry decide that it would also be an easy way to deliberately poison someone and get away with it. They had obliviated her and impounded all her research, even managing to make her article on the subject disappear from every single copy of Alchemist's Almanac in existence.

Hermione's eyes widened.

Pleased with her reaction, Remus continued.

"Severus told me about the case in Hungary, centuries earlier, where a wizard came up with the same idea and the authorities had him killed and every last piece of evidence destroyed so there was no way future generations could find out about his work…" he was just getting into his stride when Hermione put her hand on his arm and leaned close.

"Two points, Remus," she whispered urgently and, he thought, rather angrily. "Firstly, I know there is no longer a war going on, but there are still things which are not suitable for casual discussion. For God's sake, be careful when you're tossing out this kind of gossip as it can get people into trouble! I don't need the Unspeakables descending on me because I know too much and neither do you." Stunned, he just stared at her, incapable of reacting. She released her grip on his arm and softened somewhat. "Secondly, if the Magyar magical government did such a thorough job of wiping this poor man's discovery from the face of the earth, how does Severus know about it?"

Feeling as though he had swallowed stinksap, Remus tried to process her words.

"I didn't mean to put you in danger," he began apologetically. "It never occurred to me that I shouldn't talk about it - well, not to you anyway. You love learning all sorts of new facts, I thought you'd enjoy hearing a new secret. We were in a pub when Severus told me!"

"With three layers of muffling charms around you, if I know him," she smiled. "Sorry if I was a bit harsh. It's just that the Ministry is paranoid about preventing another war and has been getting a little testy about dark magic. They've been paying attention to some of my archives and it can be quite uncomfortable when you start arguing that St Mungo's needs to have knowledge of the dark arts in order to effectively treat victims of them. They look at me as though I'm training to be the next Dark Lady!"

Remus laughed aloud at that.

…….

It was only when he returned home that he allowed himself to consider Hermione's question about the Hungarian potions master. Of course, she was absolutely right in her assertion that Severus had details of an incident that was supposed to be a very great secret, which started Remus worrying. His lover's face had shown a strange kind of bitterness when he told the story, which usually appeared when talking about his unpleasant past. He hoped there was no link with Severus' activities as a Death Eater. He had never discussed his exact role in Voldemort's organisation, and Remus was reluctant to reopen old wounds, preferring not to think about it and settle with the reasonable assumption that it somehow involved potions and that was the end of it.

The little internal voice which refused to participate in self-delusion insisted that that was only the _beginning_ of it.

Hermione had also cleared up the niggling thought in the back of his mind about the Magyar-English dictionary of potions terminology he had seen in Severus' personal library. He remembered now. The Magyars were the people of Hungary, and Magyar was their language.

The text of the note he had found inside the book, signed 'L' from the late Lucius, came back to him in fragments, and he put the kettle on while he tried to remember all the words. They had been urgent: _For God's sake, be careful._ Exactly the phrase Hermione has used earlier on! It didn't sound as strange coming from her as it had from Malfoy, and with a jolt, Remus realised that it was a muggle expression, used by muggles and muggleborn wizards irrespective of any religious convictions - just part of everyday speech. The wizarding equivalent was 'for Merlin's sake', and though Hermione and Harry used both interchangeably, a pureblooded wizard of Malfoy's breeding and high standards would never have picked up a mudblood's expression.

Remus extinguished the flame beneath the kettle when he realised that he had to see the note again.

It was wrong, so wrong on so many levels to go to his lover's house, knowing that he was not due back from the Institute for another half an hour, in order to sneak around and spy on him. He ought to let the past lie. Malfoy was dead, so was this Hungarian chap and there was no point in disturbing things while the present was so enjoyable. He knew it as he arrived at the Gatehouse; he knew it as he lied to the house elf about needing to borrow a book; he knew it as he meticulously picked off the scores of protective charms on the library door and he knew it even as he stepped into the musty room. But he also knew that his burning curiosity would drive him insane unless he re-read those enigmatic lines.

_S,_

_Here you go, 'borrowed' from the Old Man's library. I sliced off the cover and filled it with newspaper, so there's no gap on the shelf. He'll never notice it's missing._

_For God's sake be careful! I mean it._

_L._

Remus held the paper up to the light in case he could make out any other markings, then checked it for concealment spells or any incantations. When it revealed nothing but its short message, he laid it carefully on the edge of a shelf and gently turned the loose pages of the potions dictionary in case there was anything else hidden inside. As the covers were missing, it was rather a fiddly job. He was almost halfway through the English-Magyar section when the page beginning 'Gillyweed' slipped out and floated to the ground. Grumbling because bending over to fetch it was more difficult than he would have liked, he almost replaced it without noticing the stamp. Familiar with library books, Remus knew that the inside front cover would probably have been marked 'Ex Libris Malfoy Manor', with either the family crest or a device associated with the Malfoys underneath - was it a dragon? A snake? Severus would know - then the back cover and two or three pages inside would have been stamped with a smaller claim to ownership. That way, even ripping off the cover of a book did not make it untraceable. 

The 'Gillyweed' page had a stamp in its bottom margin, but instead of involving capital 'M's or anything scaly, it consisted of an upright sword with tendrils curling upwards from the hilt. Either side of the blade were the letters 'G' and 'H'.

Godric's Hollow.

There could be no doubt about it. The same sword motif and initials had been printed on the inside lid of James' trunk, and wrought in iron on the front gates of the old house. Sirius had made inappropriate comments about it being a phallic symbol in front of Mrs Potter one Christmas and had received a clip round the ear.

Remus stared at the stamp, unable to believe what he was seeing. This was not possible. This was the reason one never tickled a sleeping dragon. He should have stayed at home and not tried to interfere in things which were really none of his business.

Feeling slightly light-headed, he placed the book on the shelf and picked up the note once more, seeing it with new eyes this time.

'_Borrowed' from the Old Man's library._ Remus had assumed that 'Old Man' meant 'father', but it could also mean 'husband.'

_He'll never notice it's missing. _The only reason the teenage James Potter had ever entered the room housing his family's astonishing collection of books was to look at certain anatomical pictures in some of the ones on the highest shelves. He certainly never had any interest in foreign languages.

_For God's sake be careful. I mean it._ Whatever purpose the book had been 'borrowed' for, it had been a dangerous one and the muggle or muggleborn writer of the note had been concerned for the safety of the recipient.

_L._ Remus closed his eyes as the only possible identity of 'L' hit him like a bludger.

But it made no sense. Why would Lily steal and deface a book from James' family library and give it to Severus?

A sudden sound behind him made him cry out in surprise, and he spun round to find Snape standing behind him. Guilt at being caught snooping compounded the shock and he felt his face flush.

"Severus, I…I…" whatever he had been about to stammer died on his lips as he looked at the other man. Severus' face was a sickly shade of white, his posture was perfectly rigid and his hands were trembling. Of the cane and the spectacles, there was no sign.

"Remus," he croaked.

Then he shot forward and grabbed hold of the frightened werewolf, crushing him so tightly in a fierce hug that it was highly uncomfortable. When the pressure showed no sign of being released after a minute or so, Remus began to try and wriggle free when he heard a breathy little sob from his lover. All thoughts of the book and Lily's note vanished as he turned his head and murmured into Severus' ear:

"My love, what is it? Please…what's wrong? Are you all right?"

Snape gave another sob but relaxed his vice-hold slightly. His eyes were glistening with tears as they tried to focus on Remus, and he reached up with a shaking hand and touched the side of his face.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed, so quietly that Remus had to lip-read.

"Why? What's happened?" he dreaded the answer. Someone was obviously dead, or some catastrophe. Please not Harry, please not Hazel, not Hermione, not…

"It's wolfsbane," came the silent reply, and Remus' thoughts skidded and stopped dead in their tracks.

"Who? I Mean, what? _Wolfsbane,_ did you say?" Surely Severus hadn't got so upset about something to do with a bloody potion?!

"Team Wolf have just received the results of the health survey for wolfsbane users," Snape explained. Remus restrained his first reaction of 'about time too', just nodding instead. Severus took a long and painful breath and squeezed Remus too hard again as he exhaled. "For the first time, they've noticed that werewolves who have been taking the potion for more then ten years have been building up high levels of toxins in their systems…"

"Wait a minute, they haven't said anything before. They give us a thorough check-up every year!" Remus, relieved that everyone he knew appeared to be safe and Severus was just overreacting to some silly thing at work, started to laugh. He stopped when Snape's fingers bored into his upper arms so hard he could feel them bruising and he moaned in pain.

"Severus! You're hurting!"

He let go as though burned, muttering apologies and staggering backwards against a shelf, his bad knee twitching as it struggled to support him.

"Remus, please, my beautiful Remus. My love and my life," the tears were falling now. "Listen to me, my heart."

Lupin nodded and grasped both of Severus' hands, more frightened by the string of endearments and the sight of Snape crying than any of the other shocks so far.

"I'm making a complete mess of telling you, I'm sorry my darling."

"Say it," Remus said, too loudly. "Just tell me."

"Remus, they've found out that the wolfsbane potion is killing werewolves," Snape took a deep breath, eyes and nose streaming with sorrow. "It's killing _you_."

…….


	9. Chapter 9

Warning, swearing. Sorry about the angst. I don't know what happened - I just sat down at my desk and this came pouring out.

…….

The room was silent and dark, the bed was soft and the cool flannel on his head soothing, but none of it could take away the pain.

Had the natural transformation always been this bad? Had he forgotten how it felt to wake up shaking and incoherent, bleeding from multiple wounds inflicted by his own razor-sharp claws and teeth? Or had he grown soft from so many years of having the luxury of wolfsbane? Perhaps he was just to old to cope with it now. Whatever the reason, Remus felt weaker and sicker than at any point in his life - which, he thought with a sudden pang of self-pity, was saying something.

The worst part had been seeing Severus' distress, smelling the sense of helplessness and grief rolling off him despite his best efforts to remain outwardly strong and dependable.

Refusing to sink too deep into despondency, he forced himself to think of things other than his own torment, though the events of the previous week had not been particularly bright or cheering. Hazel had lost another baby, then Harry had got into trouble for punching a healer who had tried to throw her out of St Mungo's for being a muggle.

A tight-lipped Hermione had arrived on the morning of the first full moon since the wolfsbane scandal broke, silently brandishing a pathetic note from Finch-Fletchley in which he apologised for having to "take time out" to "find out where his head was at" and "chill", which were all very trendy ways of saying that he had no interest in fatherhood. It had taken a lot of persuasion, begging and finally actual threats to stop Harry and Severus from hunting the lad down and unleashing their multiple frustrations on his worthless arse. Hermione had actively encouraged their mission until Hazel had pointed out that even if Justin was of no emotional support to her, he was at least filthy rich and could therefore prove to be of more practical use alive than dead. 'Guilt money' had been one of the phrases she had used.

Harry had looked mildly affronted at this. Severus had looked disappointed at first, but then he and Hermione had shared a look of extreme cunning and plottiness which suggested that Justin was in no way off the hook, merely because he was no longer in immediate danger of being turned inside out. Remus had to admit that however vulgar it sounded, Hermione could derive come consolation from knowing that if she was forced to be a single mum, she was at least not going to struggle to make ends meet.

A soft sound pulled him back to the reality of the sickbed and he lifted the corner of the cloth to see Snape peering in through the half-open door.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I wasn't asleep," Remus sighed, and Severus tiptoed over to the edge of the bed and began rearranging the cushions on the bedside chair very gently, as though afraid to disturb the peace. "Stop it!" The werewolf flung the cloth away in a sudden flash of annoyance. It hit the curtains with a damp thud.

"What?" Snape sounded alarmed.

"Being quiet, treating me like an invalid! It's bloody irritating. Pack it in!"

"I'm sorry, it just felt like…" he waved a hand in the air helplessly.

"Just sit down here and talk to me as though I'm a real live living human being, for Merlin's sake!" Remus knew he was being unfair, but he was frazzled and aching and pissed off with the permanent stress which had overtaken the house over the past three weeks. He shifted slightly in the bed and his damaged ribs throbbed in protest, making him practically snarl: "And where the _hell_ have you been, anyway?!"

"At the Institute," Snape answered after a moment. He removed his glasses and his black and white streaked hair hung forward to completely obscure his face, the way it had done in younger, more unsettled times. Immediately Remus knew he had upset his lover, but the bitch-gremlin had a hold of him now and nothing could stop it.

"I missed you. I wanted you to be here to look after me, instead of messing around with ineffectual nonsense all day and talking about me behind my back as though I was some kind of fucking experiment. You left me on my own!"

"You said this morning that you wanted…"

"Is this how it's going to be, Severus?" he growled, aware that his anger was making everything hurt more, and aware that that made him even angrier. "You waste our precious, dwindling time together being away trying to find a cure which doesn't exist? Leave me to die alone? I that what you want to have to live with for the rest of your life?"

Snape tried to stand, but his bad leg shook so much he had to stay in the chair.

"Is that worse than finding out too late that you could have been cured, if only I had spent my time working on it instead of sitting around watching you sleep?" His voice was rasping and bitter.

"I don't know," Remus was too exhausted to stay angry.

"No, neither do I," Snape rubbed at his knee. "Please stop talking as though you've got hours to live. I know you feel awful after the change, but the timescale they are calculating is calibrated in _years._"

"Yes, of course, forgive me," the apology came out as an exhalation, the final sad puff of deflation of a punctured quaffle. He wished it had sounded more sincere. "I'm getting selfish."

"Remus…" Severus leaned forward and stroked his cheek, careful to avoid the sore, red gouge running diagonally across it, and very carefully kissed him on the tip of his chin.

"Sorry," In his emotional state, the tender gesture brought tears to his eyes, even though they made the scratch sting and the sobbing hurt his chest.

"Shh," Severus dabbed his face with his old handkerchief, stroking his hair with the other hand as though petting an injured animal incapable of understanding speech. "Can you try and trust me, love?"

Remus managed a nod.

"Thank you. This was your first transformation without the wolfsbane potion for years, it was bound to be ghastly," he reasoned. "Just think of Luna and all the young werewolves, who have never done it naturally before. They must be terrified. You are going to be fine, as an old hand at this," Snape's voice, though so broken and breathy since his capture, was still hypnotically calming. "By next month we will have made great leaps forward. I doubt we will have revamped wolfsbane so quickly, but we will have discovered which pain relieving potions you can take safely, so whatever happens it will be much easier than this. The worst is over."

Remus nodded again, desperately wishing it could be true.

…….

Yet another article about the best ways to protect one's family from werewolf attack had appeared in the Daily Prophet. A good percentage of the information offered directly contradicted the advice given the previous week, though he doubted that people absorbed much of it anyway. Harry had told him that many wizards were simply holing up in their cellars or attics for the duration of the full moon, preparing themselves for some kind of siege rather than trusting the precautions put in place by the Ministry.

Remus could hardly blame them.

The public response to the news that wolfsbane was turning out to be toxic when taken regularly for more than twenty years had been much kinder than he had imagined. Of course, some extremists had advocated an indiscriminate cull of all 'uncontrollable beasts', and some paranoid parents now refused to let their children out of their sight at any time of the month, but an amazing amount of people were sympathetic. Remus had even found himself in the embarrassing position of being set up as an example to all of how werewolves had made a positive contribution to society, citing a few acts of 'heroism' during the war which made him squirm uncomfortably.

Of course, that positive coverage paled into insignificance when compared with the story of the pretty, blonde, innocent four year old girl who had been mauled to death during the second full moon since the crisis. Or the handsome nineteen year old Quidditch star whose promising career had been ended after getting too drunk at a post-match party to fly home and deciding to walk instead. The bite had not been fatal, but, as every witch and wizard knows, despite having heightened senses and superhuman strength at times, werewolves can't fly. The general feeling of insecurity and mistrust was becoming very similar to the old wartime atmosphere, with the wildest of rumours rife and everyone forced to take sides.

Yet again, Remus was bowled over by the kindness of his friends. They had formed an instant, unbreakable network of support and generosity, which brought more tears to his eyes during the dark times.

Despite all his own problems, Harry was sitting next to him in the memorial garden, cheerfully discussing his recent visit to the twins' shop to distract them both from the gloomy thoughts which had surfaced as they discussed Team Wolf's lack of progress.

"Oh, that reminds me," he rummaged around in his pockets and brought out a small package, which he handed to Remus. "This is from Fred and George."

Remus held it at arm's length suspiciously.

"It's OK," Harry laughed. "They told me it's something for the house."

With some trepidation, Remus untied the string and tugged off the brown paper, to reveal a small iron plaque with the words _'Beware of the Beast!' _wrought in elegant, sloping letters. Harry clapped a hand to his mouth.

"Oh god!" he exclaimed, urgently trying to scan his friend's face to see if he was amused or offended. The word 'beast' was anathema to most with his condition, and Harry looked mortified at the sight of it.

Remus picked up the little card which had tumbled onto the ground and read:

_We thought this was quite appropriate..._

He turned it over, trying to ignore the evil little flutters in his chest at the thought that not everyone who had been on his side during the war was necessarily behind him now.

…_to put on the door of Snape's study._

The two men laughed out loud, then, realising how good it felt to laugh, carried on until a curious Hermione broke off her conversation with Hazel and came over to investigate. Remus cursed his self-absorption when he realised he hadn't asked how the pregnant witch had given the tortured couple her big news, nor how they had reacted. On the surface at least, all seemed as well as could be expected. Hazel was pale and drawn, but grimly determined not to be broken. Hermione was getting fatter all over, positively glowing with health and fecundity, except for her resigned and regretful attitude. Wonderfully, the girls had been getting along just fine.

Hermione took the plaque from Remus and after a little spluttering and disapproval, she joined in the joke and all three of them enjoyed the much-needed silliness for a few minutes. Remus thought it strange that he hadn't noticed how long it had been since he had last been overcome by uncontrollable laughter, and amidst the hilarity, felt it was rather sad that his young companions were probably in the same boat.

Before he could get too melancholy, his attention was caught by the appearance of someone he didn't know coming through the gate. This was unremarkable as the gardens were a public space for everyone to enjoy, and though they backed onto Harry's home, there were some impressively ferocious wards around the perimeter to confound or expel anyone straying uninvited into Godric's Hollow. What held Remus' eye was the odd appearance of the newcomer. He was a very tall, well built man, wearing flip-flops, khaki shorts, a yellow t-shirt with a picture of a surfer on it and a lot of jewellery made from wooden beads. A canvas kitbag emblazoned with the words 'Rip-Curl' was slung over one shoulder. Most striking of all, however, was the explosion of flame-red, shoulder-length dreadlocks and the huge fluffy ginger beard, which was decorated here and there with more beads and little braids.

An impressive figure, Remus decided, and turned to Harry to make a comment. But Harry and Hermione were staring as though mesmerised. Hermione's eyes had gone huge with amazement and Harry's mouth hung open in a rather unattractive gawp. The tall man caught sight of them and stared back for a minute, before breaking into a huge, face-splitting grin.

There was an inelegant stampede and a few squeals of delight, but it was not until the trio was messily enveloped in a familiar three-way bear hug that Remus finally realised that he was witnessing something rather wonderful.

Hazel sidled over, smiling curiously at the long-overdue reunion taking place in dangerous proximity to Sirius' memorial fountain.

"Is that who I think it is?" she asked.

"I think it might be," Remus beamed.

Five seconds later, there was a lot of screaming as the youngsters were blasted with three perfectly aimed water jets. As they laughed and swore and shook themselves, Remus felt a strange shift in the air around him, or not really the air, perhaps something in the ground, or even from somewhere inside the wolf himself; but wherever it came from, it murmured to his sixth sense with a suggestion of quiet reassurance.

It may have been something to do with his pack being reunited, or even just an echo of their collective joy, but whatever happened next, he had a feeling that everything was going to be all right.

…….

…….


	10. Chapter 10

Oh, my. It's been a while, hasn't it? Nice to see you again!

Disclaimer: Still not mine, still all JKR's and I'm still making no money from fanfic.

Recap: Severus and Remus are Happy Ever After, years after the end of the second Voldemort War (see the prequel "Salvage What You Can" for details of how Snape got his limp and lost his voice, how Lucius Malfoy died in suspicious circumstances, how Snape and Lupin fell in love…)

Long-term users of the wolfsbane potion are being slowly poisoned by it.

Oh, and incantation-activated potions are so illegal that you get obliviated for even believing they exist. Which they don't, because nobody is allowed to think about inventing them, see?

NB This fic is based on a Potter-verse created before the release of Half-Blood Prince, so later canon revelations have rendered bits of it AU. Thank you x.

…….

Remus was trying not to obsess about his health problem. Really trying.

The trouble was, every time that he succeeded in thinking about something else, he would receive a letter or a floo call from his well-intentioned friends being very kind, very considerate and - to his eyes at least - overflowing with soft-pedalled pity which made him want to growl. He knew that he was fortunate to have such a wonderful support network, not to mention the brilliant minds from the Institute of Master Potioners who came round now and then with questions as they tried out their latest theories.

It was fellows of the IMP who had developed the wolfsbane potion all those years ago and subsequently tested and improved it a hundred times over. Now that the lethal consequences of its long-term use had been revealed, it was the IMP who were working relentlessly to devise a solution. Almost all other projects had been frozen so that the 'Werewolf Question' could receive the full attention of every discipline and nearly every fellow. There were international conferences. There were symposia. There were all-night brainstorming sessions churning out wacky theories and the occasional violent disagreement.

If the circumstances had been a little less grim, people may have publicly admitted that the IMP was actually a rather exciting place to be at that moment.

'Team Wolf', the little group who had devoted their lives to the study of potions as they applied to lycanthropy, found that their status had rocketed overnight. Their work had suddenly been transformed from a rather nerdy discipline revolving around an unfashionable minority of the magical population into the most important issue of the day. For the first time in their lives, Luna, Asif, Roger and Tony were _world experts, _being consulted reverently by much older, cooler or more qualified potioners who hung on their every word. It was a new and rather gratifying experience for all of them.

Remus knew that it was very fortunate for him and for his lupine brothers and sisters that all these clever wizards were falling over themselves to develop a safer version of the wonder-potion which had made his transformations so easy. Not to mention coming up with something to counteract the damage caused by the build-up of many layers of toxins in his system which had gone unnoticed until now.

Severus had explained, using that slow and unintentionally patronising tone he used when trying to simplify technical potions matters to his lover, that the poisons present in wolfsbane subdued the almighty power of the wolf without killing it because they were subtle, stealthy and quietly insidious. For this reason, none of the extensive tests undergone by wolfsbane users every year had managed to reveal any cause for concern. This year however, a new and more accurate toxicity test being used for the very first time had shown dangerously high levels in long-term users. Like Remus Lupin.

"It's all my fault," Snape would return from crisis-management meetings in the early hours, emotionally exhausted. "It's me who's been slowly harming you, all this time."

"That's enough," Remus would insist, himself worn out by his work with a new group created to support panicked werewolves and to try and counter outbreaks of public hysteria with common sense and pamphlets. "I still think of wolfsbane as a miracle. Even if they never find a safe version, I've had many years of pain-free full moons and I'm grateful for that and grateful to you for brewing it."

This was true some of the time. At other moments, such as when bed-ridden for a full week each month after the stress of a 'natural' transformation, Remus could be vile, petty and accusatory, disparaging Severus' skill as a potions master and the veracity of his declarations of love. He knew it was irrational and unpleasant of him.

When he managed to set his brain onto other matters, there were plenty of things to occupy him. Ron Weasley had recently returned to the UK after years of travelling the world and had a never-ending supply of incredible stories to tell about exotic locations or encounters with people and creatures. He also had a knack of reminding the listeners, just as they began to get jealous or wonder whether he were showing off, that the whole reason he felt he had to leave the life he knew had been because the trauma of the war had scarred him so badly.

Raised in a big, jolly family, he had found that he could no longer cope with company. The familiar faces of his friends were a constant reminder of the evil they had battled together. The constant need of everyone - of so he had believed at the time - to rehash their war experiences and go over and over their struggles with a kind of victor's pride, had revolted him.

He knew that a lot of people were offended when he left, but he had known with the conviction of a teenager old before his time that staying behind would have turned him into something unpleasant.

When not chatting to Ron, there was also the excitement of Hermione's growing baby-bump and the various plots devised by her friends to cause serious harm to the absent father-to-be, the deserting swine Finch-Fletchley. Harry and Hazel had decided to take a break from their unsuccessful and draining attempts at getting pregnant and had acquired a puppy as a distraction.

"And a substitute," Hazel added quickly, before anyone could feel guilty for thinking it as she introduced the little animal to the group, glowing with maternal pride. "If we don't manage to get a real child, we still get to raise Pickle. Don't we, poppet? Don't we? Yes, we do! Where's Daddy? Where's your Daddy? Where is he, then?"

Harry and Pickle nuzzled each other lovingly and rolled around on the floor for a bit, yipping, for the general entertainment of the company and for Hazel in particular, who was smiling properly for the first time in months.

After a while, Remus began to feel tired and made his excuses. When he arrived home, however, his beloved cottage seemed nothing more than an extension of his sickbed, hushed and full of cut flowers kindly sent by his friends. He was so lucky to be surrounded by so many thoughtful people, yet unkindly he decided in an irritable moment that the bright blooms looked garish and foreign amidst the homely muted shades of his comfortable old cottage.

Without even removing his cloak he took a handful of powder and flooed to Cornwall, to his second home.

The kneazle living in Severus' house with him - the independence of both parties and their mutual indifference being so ingrained that it was never considered to be Severus' kneazle - bared her teeth and hissed as he strode into the sitting room, as pleased as ever to find herself in the company of his kind.

"Calm down," he told her with a sigh. A lot of humans shared the lycanthrophobic sentiment these days, even if they concealed it better. "I don't want to steal your favourite chair." She fluffed up her fur and narrowed her eyes, daring him to even try. "I'm just going up to the bedroom, if that's all right with you. Josty! Josty, are you in?" " He raised his voice to call the house-elf, but when the only answer was the squawk of a seagull outside the window, he surmised that she was either out buying food or visiting her sweetheart, Dobby, at Hogwarts. He shuddered at that last thought, thankful that the private lives of elves always remained so.

The bedroom smelled of Severus and he wandered slowly around it, taking in the evidence of the little peculiar habits which he knew by heart but nevertheless enjoyed reminding himself of. They had been spending more time at Remus' home in Derbyshire since all this business had begun and it felt nice to be back in the place where they had shared their first night together. Or rather, their first afternoon.

"_You realise the weather prevents us from taking our walk again?"_

_Remus smiled at the mention of 'our' walk along the clifftop, which had become a habit since the first stages of their relationship._

"_We'll just have to entertain ourselves inside. What do you suggest, Severus?"_

"_Chess?"_

"_No, we've already established that it takes you twelve and a half minutes to beat me."_

"_Draughts?"_

"_Last time all the ornaments were blown off their shelves."_

"_Diagonopoly?"_

"_You buy Hogwarts and the Ministry then cackle evilly while I go bankrupt."_

"_Morgana's Missing Sixes?"_

"_I'm unlucky at cards."_

"_Squabble?"_

"_Your dictionary's biased in your favour."_

"_Sex?"_

He giggled at the memory of Severus' invitation being issued in exactly the same tone of voice he had used for suggesting staid parlour games and at his own rapturous delight three seconds later when his libido caught up with his ears. They were both too tired and anxious for any of that sort of thing now, of course, which was rather sad. He decided that it was probably time they made an effort. Severus probably needed some after all his hard work at the Institute.

Remus undressed and snuggled into Severus' side of the bed, revelling in the scent of him and the slight dip in the mattress where he had lain every night for years. Without meaning to, he dozed, contentedly dreaming of thin arms wrapping around him and an intense black stare plunging deep through his body to read the innermost secrets of his soul.

"Move over, Lupin."

"Hmph?"

"You are on my side. You know that's my side. You sleep on the other side." Snape was rolling him over into the cold part of the bed, which was hugely unfair. He opened his eyes.

"What time is it?" he asked sleepily.

"Just gone eight pm. I had to come home before I removed Hardtbrind's skin and used it to re-upholster the chairs in the Senior Common Room," he scowled the special scowl he reserved for use when his arch-rival potioner's name was mentioned. "They're all somewhat worn on the arms, you know."

"Don't make me move," pleaded Remus, slipping a hand inside Snape's robes. "We can both use this side of the bed."

Snape's eyebrows rose above the dark frames of his spectacles and he removed the intruding hand.

"I don't think that's a good idea…" he began.

"I do," purred the werewolf, putting the hand back and sliding it slowly around Snape's waist between his undershirt and his tunic. "In fact, I think it's the best idea anyone's had for weeks.

"Are you well enough?" he whispered urgently, "I don't want to hurt…"

The exceedingly boring sentence was interrupted by Remus forcefully pulling Severus down into bed and clambering on top of him, suddenly needing to prove that he wasn't a complete invalid.

…….

"You know that healer who lost years of potions research when the Ministry obliviated her for knowing things it considered dangerous," said Remus, much later, his head resting on the grey hairs of his lover's sweat-soaked chest.

"This is not something which ought to be discussed," Snape admonished sleepily.

"But what if she knew something which might have helped the werewolf issue. Wendy, she's called, isn't she?"

"Hush, love, sleep now," murmured Snape lazily, but from his current position Remus' left ear easily registered the dear heart only inches away from it begin to beat fractionally faster

"And that potions master you told me about in Hungary, who was killed because of what he discovered and all his work destroyed - what if there had been a point made in his journals which contained a clue for future generations…"

A long thin finger pressed against his lips, a little harder than it might have done. He looked up to see Severus' face immobile and perfectly inscrutable in the dim light of the single candle burning in their room.

"And_what if_ a chocolate frog became Minister of Magic?" Snape mocked. "Stop being foolish, Lupin and go to sleep. You need to rest after all that exertion."

Neither of them moved then, until Remus brushed the finger aside and asked quietly and without drama.

"If all trace of the Hungarian potions master and his dangerous, illegal research was removed, how do you know so much about him?"

Severus appeared to have been turned to stone beneath him. A fox screamed horribly in the garden and the bedside clock ticked for a full minute.

"Did Lily steal the Hungarian dictionary from Godric's Hollow to help you find out what he was working on when he was silenced?"

The fox screamed again.

"She knew how dangerous it was, she knew the danger that information put you in, but she got involved anyway."

"You know all there is to know about incantation-activated poisons, despite it being forbidden to even know that it might be possible to brew one, you knew all of this years ago when you were young and Lily was still alive."

The horrible realisations were sweeping over Remus in waves, one after another. Each time he thought a pronouncement was too awful for him to have articulated, another even worse one tumbled out of his mouth.

"It was when you were a Death Eater, wasn't it? Voldemort wanted you to brew them for him, to murder people with…"

"Lupin, stop!" Finally, Snape managed to move. He squirmed free and launched himself away to the foot of the bed, where he clung to one of the posts and stared with bright eyes, ready for fight or flight. "It wasn't that," his ruined throat croaked at last. "The Dark Lord never knew."

Remus swallowed, unnerved by the words pouring out of his own mouth, half of which he had not known that he knew. Hermione had raised the point about the unfeasibility of facts surviving a full-scale governmental cover-up, as had happened in Hungary in the 18th century. Lily having stolen a dictionary from James' house for Severus seemed equally unlikely and yet he had found the evidence in her own writing, in a note tucked inside that very book.

Everything was becoming too confusing. Without even registering it, he had steered clear of topics touching on his lover's time as one of Voldemort's creatures, fearing what unpleasantness might be stirred up in his own mind as well as in Snape's. They had been on opposing sides then. Remus' stance on the _right_ side from the beginning hadn't automatically given him a less traumatic war, either. Fear, suspicion and profound loss had scarred them both over twenty years.

It suddenly seemed painfully unfair that the past was threatening the hard-won happiness they had scraped together in their late middle age.

"Tell me," Remus said, reaching for his wand to turn on the light.

Severus flinched.

"Please," added Remus, pulling back the covers to invite him back into the warmth. "I need to know what you did. Tell me."

Sighing, Snape nodded once and carefully manoeuvred his bad leg back across the bed.

"I can't refuse you that," he whispered miserably. "I'll give you the whole story on one condition."

The lay side by side on their backs in, not touching. When Remus turned his head, Severus did the same so they were face to face.

"What?"

"That you extinguish the light. This is a tale of darkness."

…….

Author's Note: Next (and probably final) chapter to follow very soon! Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed!

Love, Nightie x


	11. Chapter 11

A few months after the Malfoys married, Narcissa set about imposing her personality on her new husband's family home

Warning: Some nasty implied **violence.** And some cheesy melodrama.

Author's Note: I said at the end of Chapter 10 that this would be the final chapter. It's not true! There was just too much to cram in! Sorry about that. I imagine one more after this, then perhaps an epilogue.

A lot of this chapter refers back to elements from "Salvage What You Can" - Malfoy's death, Severus' arrest on suspicion of murdering him, the nasty young auror Phelps and his auror father's unfortunate death years before, etc. If you can't stand to re-read the whole cheesy lot of it (I wouldn't blame you one bit, it's rather embarrassing going over the old stuff,) the main bits are in SWYC Chapter 11.

Thanks once again to everyone who has been so nice and has stuck with me over the years, SN xx

xx

"_Please," added Remus, pulling back the covers to invite him back into the warmth. "I need to know what you did. Tell me."_

_Sighing, Snape nodded once and carefully manoeuvred his bad leg back across the bed._

"_I can't refuse you that," he whispered miserably. "I'll give you the whole story on one condition."_

_The lay side by side on their backs in, not touching. When Remus turned his head, Severus did the same so they were face to face._

"_What?"_

"_That you extinguish the light. This is a tale of darkness."_

xx

A few months after the Malfoys married, Narcissa set about imposing her personality on her new husband's family home. The furniture in her bedroom and study had been far too dark and dreary for her taste, so she and Lucius had ventured up to the attic storerooms one afternoon to see if they could find any more suitable pieces. Amongst the detritus of damaged artwork, doxy-infested curtains and ancient keepsakes had been some nicer furniture requiring only a little restoration, that she considered much more suitable.

Among her favourites was a lovely 18th century desk. Unfortunately, every one of its drawers was crammed to bursting point with parchment and crumbling documents.

"They could be important," she said.

"They've been up here all this time and no one's bothered with them," Lucius reasoned. "Let's just clear out the lot and burn them."

"What if they're of historical importance to the family?" She placed her hands on her hips and gave him a look he had never seen until after the wedding.

Thus, Severus found himself coerced into helping Lucius sort through the paperwork. It had not been unpleasant. The two young wizards holed up in the attic with some bottles of beer, chatting as they divided all the jumble into "Important," "Useless," and "?". After four hours, the "?" pile was by far the largest of the three.

"Most of it's not written in English," tutted Snape.

"It'll probably be an Eastern European language," commented Lucius with little enthusiasm. "The stuff we can understand is the correspondence of Sophia Malfoy, the family's greatest brain, so the rest are probably her professional notes. She never married and spent most of her adult life at the Conservatoire of Magical Excellence in Hungary. She was an internationally celebrated developer of wandless magic, as well as a brilliant potioner. They say most European institutions and even governments used to owl her for advice."

"Wow," said Snape, his eyes sparkling. He had just been accepted at the IMP to study for Bronze Standard and was unbearably smug about it, believing his hitherto unsuspected genius to have finally been recognised. No amount of cuffs round the ear from more senior Death Eaters or even the particularly sharp one from an exasperated Dark Lord had dampened his pompous joy. In Sophia Malfoy, he fancied that he had found a kindred spirit.

Her diaries, once he cracked the secret code she used, provided a fascinating insight into the life of a true intellectual. He read years and years of amazing projects and intrigues with the top strata of Continental society until he reached the last, unfinished book, when shortly after her 91st birthday, a very intriguing thing happened.

_"Met potioner, F., old dorm-fellow of Z's from Durmstrang, disguised as hag because believes Magi-Police following him. Says has developed immunisation to spattergroit which can be activated by wandless spell at first sign of epidemic. Clearly mad as a bumblebee."_

Several days later, she had changed her mind.

_"Coded owl from G. at Ministry, asking if I know work of Z's mad friend F. Also asked if it was poss. to brew potion able to lie dormant in body until spell makes it work. Replied evasively, then wrote to F. asking to meet again."_

The hairs rose on the back of Snape' neck as he realised the potential of such a potion. Skipping through another week of less interesting entries, he arrived at the next development in the tale.

_"Sat up all night with F. discussing his research. Bugger me soundly. It IS poss. and he's cracked it. Potential enormous, but he hadn't thought of poison/murder aspect. Fool. Says he's been boasting to brewing rivals so not exactly secret either. No doubt government will be interested."_

The following day:

_"Got warning from G's wife that F's lab to be searched by Magi-Police. Just enough time for him to shrink notebooks and owl them to me. Hate breaking law but Minister too dense to understand, especially with polit. situation as it is."_

Severus read on avidly as things became more dangerous for Sophia and "F."

_"F. and I both under surveillance. Have duplicated all his work and spelled locked into my desk. Know I ought to forget this whole business but too interesting. Great-nephew Draco coming for visit tomorrow, intend to shrink desk and persuade him to take whole lot back to England hidden in his peri-wig. Have put duplicate of diary in with other notes, so all future entries appear in other copy as well as this one."_

_"Awful news. F. vanished. Home and lab destroyed. Don't want to ask contacts what happened. Afraid I already know answer."_

_"2 figures loitering outside in street day and night. Suspect Ministry spying on me."_

_"Told everyone who'll listen am going back to England for Georgiana Prince's wedding and short holiday. Need break from all this. Also time to sort through F's notes. Still no trace of him. Think he must be in their dread secret prison."_

_"Was not permitted to cross border, escorted home. Uniformed guards at front and back of house, floo blocked, owls impounded. Must destroy this diary, too incriminating, but other copy should be safe in Manor by now. Friends in useful places will get me out of this and I can get back to England and continue F's research there."_

The rest of the pages in the duplicate diary were blank. Frantically, Snape searched through the rest of the documents, looking for something dated later than that frightened but nevertheless optimistic entry, but there was no more word about Sophia until Lucius drew a letter from the official family archives in the cellar. The director of the Conservatoire of Magical Excellence had written to William Henricius Malfoy informing him that his sister had been found dead in her house in Pest by her neighbour. She had apparently died peacefully in her sleep and the director offered condolences to the family on behalf of herself and all those who had been lucky enough to work with such a brilliant witch, etc., etc.

It was dated one day after the final piece in the final journal.

"Shit," said Lucius.

"Assasinated!" whispered Severus with a shiver.

"Just because of some stupid potion," Lucius shook his head. When Severus began to try and explain the importance of the discovery in the excitable tone which indicated his imagination had been fired by something, Lucius' face grew grim. "Oh no! Don't you dare!"

"But, Lucius, this thing is huge," he reasoned. "If I can just look at the notes…"

"Yes, huge enough to have the great Sophia Malfoy murdered by the state, despite all her amazing contacts and precocious intelligence," he drew his wand and pointed it at Snape's chest. "An insignificant little brat like Severus Snape will be no trouble at all to bump off. The merest hint of you meddling with things you are too young to understand and you'll be in Azkaban, if you're lucky! Promise me you won't read those papers!"

"Lucius!" Snape pleaded, crestfallen.

"You're not a schoolboy any more and this isn't a game!" Malfoy shouted. "If you fall into Ministry hands they'll find your Dark Mark and that will be enough to get you the Kiss, regardless of your having messed with illegal potions. Now, _promise me!"_

Pouting with disappointment, Snape promised.

xx

Remus had forgotten to breathe during the last part of the narrative and when Severus paused, he took such a large gulp of air it made him splutter.

"Are you all right?" Snape whispered, concerned.

"Fine, fine. Just enthralled," he managed. "That is a tremendous story."

"Indeed," sighed Snape. "Sadly, it does not end there. Should I continue?"

"Yes, please," the werewolf replied. "But before you do, will you answer one question that I've wondered about for a long time?"

"Of course," said Snape.

"Well," Remus swallowed. Now he finally had the chance to find out, he wasn't certain that he wanted to know. To buy more time, he reached over to the bedside table for a sip of water from the glass Severus had brought up with him. When there could be no more delaying, he asked the question he had avoided thinking about ever since they got together.

"You and Malfoy…" he began, with some trepidation..

"Yes?" murmured Snape.

"It's just, well, he never seemed the sort of man who would associate with anyone unless there was something in it for him, yet I've always had the impression that he was, um, very protective of you. Now you say he warned you off the incantation-activated potions like that; letting you mess around in his secret family papers, which kind of hints that, that, the two if you, er…"

"Lupin, what are you trying to say?" It was too dark to see, even for a werewolf, but there was an icy edge to his lover's damaged voice, which Remus didn't like to hear. He sighed. Deciding that it didn't really matter anyway, he caved in.

"Nothing. Go on with the story."

xx

It was Snape's first raid as a Death Eater. He had been in Voldemort's service behind the scenes for almost a year as the great wizard recognised that his mind was worth more in a library or laboratory than his clumsy, excitable young man's body was in the heat of battle. Eventually, he had relented and allowed the studious boy to accompany his former classmate Rupert Wilkes on a minor mission to intimidate - but not really harm - the elderly parents of an auror, who lived on an isolated Scottish farm. They were supposed to set the barn on fire, scorch the Dark Mark into the side of the house and press their masked faces against the windows; just a junior's raid to remind wizardkind that the Dark Lord knew where everyone lived and held the power of life and death in the palm of his hand.

xx

Remus gulped.

"Go on," he prompted again, trying not to radiate too much revulsion.

xx

It had gone wrong from the beginning.

Obviously, there had been some kind of emergency warning system in place, which meant that ten seconds after Snape and Wilkes apparated into the kitchen-garden, half of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement popped out of thin air all around them. Anti-appartition wards clutched tight around Snape's chest and ankles as he tried to retreat, so he focussed his mind on the mysterious and awe-inspiring way the Dark Lord was sometimes able to fly, without broom or other visible assistance. It was the adrenaline, he later discovered, which had made him fly in a lifesaving erratic arc above the heads of the surprised aurors, crash-landing out of sight behind a barn, safe but nursing a painful broken elbow.

Wilkes had not been so lucky.

Scream after scream sent tremors through Snape as he cowered behind the wall, horrified that the supposed good guys were using Death Eater tactics. It wasn't supposed to work like that. He could not make out all the words, but snatches of awfulness whipped towards him on the wind.

"Crucio!"

"That's for the Prewetts, you little bastard!"

"Not so brave now, are we?"

"Crucio!"

"Do that one which makes the eyeballs explode!"

"I'll teach you scum what happens when you mess with my Ma and Pa! Crucio!"

Snape's mouth filled with bile as he recognised Alastor Moody's voice. The Dark Lord ought to have warned them which family they were messing around with, surely to Merlin?! For a crazy moment he considered trying to do something to help Wilkes, but he could hear at least six different voices, cursing and mocking, and he had never been good at spellcasting with his left hand…

"Oh, Phelps, that's vile! There's guts all over my new boots, thanks a lot! Now, what should we do with the body?"

"Hang it from a lamp-post in Diagon Alley as a warning to the others."

"Hah hah hah hah!"

xx

Not having felt like eating dinner, there wasn't much for Remus to vomit, but he kept heaving anyway, clutching the toilet bowl as though it would steady him. Snape carefully bent his bad knee and crouched beside him, rubbing his back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I shouldn't have told you these unpleasant things. It all happened a long time ago, just one incident out of…"

"Please shut the hell up, Severus," gasped Remus. "You know why I'm being sick."

Snape's hand stopped stroking and fell away from him.

"I know _he_ was with them when Wilkes was killed, but he gave me a different version of what happened. He said there was a fight and Wilkes fell off the roof of the barn and impaled himself on farm equipment."

"Remus…"

"Don't try and deny it. Sirius was there. You heard his voice cursing, didn't you? One of a mob of seven aurors torturing one solitary man to death. Don't lie to me."

"Remus, please…"

"Severus!" He looked up at the other wizard's ashen face, old and weary in the bright bathroom light.

"You must never tell Harry," Snape pleaded, hanging his head in defeat. "They were both there, both…participating. Sirius Black _and_ James Potter."

xx

Lucius' evening had not been much better.

A female Death Eater whose name neither of them had known had not completed an important task Voldemort had set her, through no real fault of her own, Lucius thought very quietly to himself. The Dark Lord decreed that those who failed him through incompetence and laziness did not deserve to live. The witch should be made an example of.

Malfoy had been unable to recount exactly how she had met her eventual end, but if even he, the most smooth and unshakeable Death Eater was three-quarters of the way through a bottle of Old Ogden's before he could even describe the edited version of events, Snape knew it must have been every bit as horrible as Wilkes' death.

"Trouble ish, Sevs, that once they start, there's no way out 'cept an 'orrible agonising death, and no one can help you because they dare not, like you with Rupert and me with whatshername."

Snape cautiously rotated his elbow to make sure that Lucius had managed to heal it properly in his drunken state.

"I'm scared," he admitted in a small voice.

"You'd be an idiot if you weren't," nodded Lucius. Suddenly more coherent, he leaned over and started at Snape with gleaming grey eyes. "Now, you're a bright lad. What about Aunt Sophia's potion?"

"Eh?"

"What if you could brew a painless instantaneous poison, which could be ingested safely beforehand, then activated with a wandless spell should we fall into the wrong hands. Whoosh! All over. No torture, no dementors' Kiss, no writhing on the ground soiling oneself as they draw out your agony for hours until your life finally whimpers out. That's not a fitting death for a man like me, I want to go quickly and with dignity."

Severus backed away, convinced Malfoy had gone mad.

"Don't be a fool! You can't just play around with poisons like that, even if Sophia and her mad friend managed to do it back then. It's too dangerous!"

Lucius pounced on him before he could make it to the fireplace and escape.

"More dangerous than what we've both witnessed tonight?"

xx

And then, Remus knew the answer to another, different question he had been deliberately not thinking about.

"You translated the Hungarian notes and succeeded in making the incantation-activated poison. Malfoy took it, but he was never captured or threatened with an unpleasant death so he never had to enunciate the spell to end his own life. Not until many years later, when his final appeal failed and they were about to give him the Kiss. You went to visit him in Azkaban one last time, then…"

Severus gave a mirthless laugh.

"He had forgotten the word. Can you believe it? He finally needed the emergency escape plan we had put in place twenty years earlier and he couldn't remember the spell. The Azkaban guards were recording our conversation but it was easy enough to communicate subtly and he ended his life painlessly a few hours before he was supposed to be executed. The problem came a few days later when those idiot aurors turned up and arrested me."

Remus shuddered as he remembered that night of helplessness and devastation, then glowed with pride as he recalled how so many different people had come to Severus' aid, belying the cantankerous old veteran's insistence that everyone hated him. Harry, Neville, Minerva, Pansy Parkinson, Kingsley Shacklebolt, to name but a few. Some had even lied on his behalf to try and convince the overzealous Auror Phelps that Snape could not have murdered Malfoy.

"The thing I dreaded most was Veritaserum," Severus rubbed the bridge of his nose as he reminisced. "If they had asked whether I brewed a poison and gave it to Lucius, bringing about his death, then the answer would have been yes."

"That wasn't murder!" exclaimed Remus. "It was his decision to take poison back in the '70s and his decision to activate it!"

"I don't think Phelps junior would have given me chance to explain that we had been using illegal methods because we were cowardly Death Eaters, afraid of being attacked by either side. Besides, he might have asked if I killed his father too."

There were too many revelations happening at once for Remus to deal with and part of him wanted nothing more than to put his fingers in his ears and have a nice lie down, so he could forget that the man he adored had done such unpardonable things. Wonderful things too, later on, but could they ever really cancel out what had come before? He remembered visiting the Weasleys for emotional support after Severus' arrest and hearing Percy's description of his old classmate, William Phelps, who passionately hated any suspected Death Eaters because he believed them to have been responsible for his father's death, although that had been officially recorded at suicide. He had jumped at the first opportunity since qualifying as a junior auror to get his hands on Snape.

"Auror Jeremiah Phelps was there when your friend Wilkes was killed, as well as Sirius and James?" he murmured slowly.

"The ringleader of the torture," came the reply, from between clenched teeth.

"Ah. Do you think that's why Phelps senior killed himself? Remorse?" asked Remus.

Never before had Severus face shown such searing agony. Unable to bear the sight of his lover's suffering, Remus reached out to comfort him, to tell him that it was all right, that no more conversation was necessary that evening, that they could forget everything and go on as if nothing had happened. Jerkily, Snape batted his hands away and visibly struggled to regain control for a couple of minutes.

"He didn't kill himself."

Five minutes of ringing silence later, he added, so shamefully that Remus feared such intense self-loathing would cause his body some terrible harm:

"We had to test the potion before we took it."

xx


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Characters and situations belong to J.K. Rowling. I am just using them for fun, not for profit and entirely without malice.

Just a reminder - this story began pre-Half-Blood Prince, so there was much we didn't know and made up, which later turned out to be wrong. This is the sequel to Salvage What You Can.

Recap: Severus is explaining to Remus about the incantation-activated poison he brewed for himself and Lucius Malfoy during the war when they feared torture at the hands of Death Eaters or Aurors. Wolfsbane has been discovered to be slowly killing long-terms users like Lupin, so werewolves now have to undergo a natural change every full moon, which is painful and exhausting. The potions experts are trying to find a new solution, but Remus is quite ill.

Oh, I should probably warn you about a bit of language.

Xxx

Flashback.

It made a nice change for Snape to be able to let his guard down. Even though he did most of the research for the suicide potion at the dead of night, there would always be someone shuffling around the Institute of Master Potioners' library. These night owls were either undergraduates who had left their assignments until the last minute and now had to stay up cramming three months' work into one desperate night, or the true brewing geniuses to whom the rhythm of night and day played second fiddle to the irregular moments of academic inspiration.

Today, however, Severus was confident that he was one of only three or four people on the entire campus and certainly the only one wishing to do any work. Term had ended a week ago, so the disorganised midnight-oil burners had no reason to linger here. Even the most committed fellows, even the maddest of professors had been reclaimed by their families and forced, for this one special day of the year at least, to re-enter society and pay attention to something besides their precious potions.

Other people might have been upset that they had nowhere else to spend Christmas Day, but Severus Snape had descended the spiral staircase to the lowest and darkest depths of the IMP library with a feeling of immense satisfaction that crisp yuletide morn. For the first time, he could confidently bring all of his and Sophia Malfoy's notes with him without having to worry about discovery by inquisitive potioners. The formidable centenarian Madam Slughorn would be ensconced by her son's cosy fireside far from Wiltshire and unable to sneak up and bang his head with a heavy book for eating sandwiches, so there would be no need to interrupt his work even for meals. He had arranged everything around him, got very comfortable and by eight o'clock on Christmas Day evening, had made tremendous progress with this most dangerous and illegal challenge.

The translation spell on Sophia's copy of the Hungarian wizard's notes had worked well on the general words and explanations, but for some reason it had not been able to touch the more technical potions vocabulary. As this was the most important part, Severus was growing increasingly frustrated as one incomprehensible word after another derailed his train of thought. To calm himself down he thought of Lucius, who had been forced to spend his first Christmas as a married man with his new in-laws, the Blacks.

At least his Hungarian language problems weren't _that_ bad.

Poor old Lucius. Snape chuckled as he looked around at the familiar, solid and dusty old shelves full of fascinating knowledge and decided that Magyar conundrums notwithstanding, today was probably his best Christmas ever.

Leaving all his work on the table, certain that no one was around to disturb it, he ascended one library level in search of a better translation spell, one which might incorporate the technical potions terminology. There was a very useful shelf that his tutor had mentioned as holding all manner of study-aid magic and helpful material for students, lovingly compiled over the years by fellows of the institute. Unfortunately, after fifty minutes of rifling through the pages of assorted scribbles, he was no closer to finding anything of use. Disappointed, he took a plain, generic English-Magyar dictionary down from the shelf and took it back with him.

The first hint of anything being amiss was a very slight waft of an unusual scent. Down in the library's depths, where fresh air seldom penetrated, the overriding smells were of dust, paper and the odour of wizards too academically brilliant to bother with humdrum things like washing, so the ghost of flowers which suggested itself for a split second then vanished was startling. Hurrying towards the desk where he had so unwisely left his notes unattended, the smell seemed to be getting stronger and Snape cursed himself for the world's most foolish dunderhead.

If anyone had discovered what he was up to, he was probably going to have to Obliviate them now. Lucius had said that the authorities took such a dim view of these kind of potions that they had murdered his formidable and important 18th century ancestor Sophia Malfoy without a second thought. A wizard as young and insignificant at Snape would be dealt with silently and immediately and no one would ever know what had happened to him, if the Ministry were feeling rattled. The Dark Mark on his forearm would render any possible excusing arguments null and void in the event of his arrest and he would simply disappear.

Miserably, he cast a silencing charm on his feet and edged cautiously to the area where he had been working, wondering whether he ought simply to have fled without incriminating himself further by returning to the scene of his crime. Crouching behind a shelving unit, he peered over the top of the bound volumes of the Alchemical Almanac, _(Mar 1601 - Feb 1665)_ and made out one single person in a hooded cloak reading his notebook and frequently gasping with surprise. A female, judging by the squeaks and the flowery scent. He moved along to try to see who his adversary was, when his left knee made a sudden click, in reality rather quiet but which echoed like a whipcrack in the sepulchral silence of the library.

The woman leaped to her feet and Snape pulled his wand, ready to stun, curse or even worse, if necessary.

"Sev?" asked Lily Evans' voice.

Xxx

"Oh!" exclaimed Remus.

The two wizards were sitting on the bed at the house in Cornwall as Snape continued telling the secrets he had kept hidden for decades. Both were emotionally exhausted - Remus from receiving so many shocks in quick succession and Severus from having to share his most shameful moments with the person whose good opinion mattered most in his world.

"She'd had a blazing row with her sister's odious boyfriend, apparently," whispered Snape. "After spouting all his irritating comments and sexist jokes while the Evans womenfolk worked hard preparing Christmas dinner, he made a stupid comment about witches having warts and she stormed out of her parents' house to prevent herself from hexing him."

"Dursley," murmured Remus dryly.

"Pity she restrained herself, in that case," sighed Snape. "It was only a few days after James Potter's father had died and she was nervous of intruding on the family's grief so she had come to the library to take her mind off everything."

"And she found out what you were doing?"

Xxx

"This is _incredible! _Are you really working on a potion which can be taken in advance then activated at the moment it's needed? I've never even heard of such a thing! The implications for the future are mind blowing!" Lily's eyes shone with wonder, huge and green in her freckled face as in her virtuous innocence, she spotted only the do-gooding potential of incantation-activated potions. Amazement had temporarily robbed her of that sharpness which made her such a dangerous addition to the forensic section of the department of Magical Law Enforcement, as far as the Death Eaters were concerned. Foolish girl. Her wand was on the table, more than an arm's reach away, there were no witnesses and it would have been the work of two seconds to dispose of her completely.

For some reason, however, Snape was frozen to the spot, unable to speak, let alone cast spells on his former classmate and NEWT potions partner. After all that they had achieved together at Hogwarts, his respect for Evans' intelligence and ability to control most of her house with a simple raised eyebrow meant that he could never bring himself to harm her. So perhaps she wasn't so silly after all.

The library was its usual cool temperature, but the adrenaline of being discovered made Snape feel too hot. To buy himself thinking time, he reached for the flask of water he had brought with his picnic and took a long slow drink. Lily watched him silently, mercifully not badgering him with questions. For once, she was keeping her curiosity under control and he was grateful. He took another long swig and emptied the flask, then, unable to stall any longer, he looked her in the face and opened his mouth to speak. She got in first.

"Are you a Death Eater, Severus?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied at once.

"Are you going to use these potions you're researching to kill someone?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Lucius and myself."

Startled, Lily seemed to need a deep, steadying breath before rapping out the next question.

"Whatever for?"

Words spilled out of Snape. Confessions and fears which he'd never admitted to himself, even in the sweaty, sleepless hours when the world looked so bleak he had to repeat potions formulas under his breath to stop the demons encroaching at the edges of his consciousness.

He was afraid, so afraid. Joining the Death Eaters had sounded like such a good idea two years ago, when he had been young and poor and driven by anger. At first it had felt like and extension of the safety of the house system at Hogwarts - rather than having to survive in the uncertain real world, you joined Voldemort and immediately had a set of rules to follow. The rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, by which the years of their youth had been defined, had merely changed to Death Eaters versus Everyone Else. A grown-up gang full of powerful wizards. It had felt sensible and, well, _safe._

Voldemort had been impressed with Snape's skill as a potioner and had flattered him and made him feel as though he had a purpose. For the first time, the young man had the impression that he was important and not just some greasy, ugly creature unworthy of existence. He had earned the respect of the great wizard not through birth or attractiveness or any of the things which had mattered to his schoolfellows, but through hard work and intelligence. It was a heady feeling.

The honeymoon had not lasted, of course. He now explained to Lily how he had seen the Death Eaters for what they were - a bloodthirsty group of terrorists whose violence brought out the worst in other people and was slowly destroying wizarding Britain. In reality, they had no respect for anyone or anything and it had been a sickening revelation to find that his own side was as dangerous to him as the enemy. Then, the attack on Wilkes had dispelled any notion he may have had of the aurors or Dumbledore's cronies being any less brutal.

"Wilkes was killed when he fell onto farm equipment while attacking an elderly couple," she contradicted him.

"No, he was tortured to death by Moody, Phelps, Black, Potter and a couple of others I didn't recognise," said Snape flatly. "I heard them laughing as they did it."

Lily's face drained completely. Slowly, moving like a frail elderly lady, she lowered herself into a chair and stared at the empty flask on the table in front of her.

"My own fault," she murmured absently, a half-minute of heavy silence later. "Oh, god. I wanted the truth and I got it."

"What's your fault?" he asked, following her gaze.

Something cleared in Severus' mind and pure panic washed over him.

"You BITCH!" He screamed. "You complete and utter mudblooded bitch!"

"Sev, I'm sorry, I had to know."

"Veritasserum!"

"That's what we're working on at the moment," she sounded weary now, as though the news of her fiancé's mob brutality had extinguished something vital inside her, but terror and adrenaline were overtaking him as she continued. "Researching a few improvements. I had a vial in my…"

It was the only time in his life that Snape ever hit a woman. The slap knocked her sideways in the chair and was so hard it made his hand sting and he nursed it against his chest as his knees failed and his bottom hit the floor painfully hard. The truth potion disabled any emotional inhibition and he found he was crying like a little child, with tears and snot running all over his face as he snivelled apologies and incoherent words of mortification.

When Lily turned back to him, her cheek was red, but the brightness had returned to her eyes.

"Insults and injuries," she smirked down at his miserable form. "God, look at the state of us. It was low of me to spike your drink like that. Sirius is so convinced you're one of You Know Who's lot, when I found these amazing notes in your handwriting just now I had to check. Sounds like you're in trouble."

"Trouble?" echoed Snape, wetly. "In real danger of a long and painful, drawn-out tortured death, or some other fate worse than death, more like. I know I've brought it on myself but that doesn't make the idea of hearing my own eyeballs explode any more appealing."

"So you'd rather kill yourself? And Malfoy? Does he know you're trying to poison him? Be honest with me, Sev," she added, with feeling.

"Don't have any choice, do I?" he grumbled, flicking his head towards the flask. Lily had the grace to look faintly embarrassed.

"This is a war. We're on opposite sides," she shrugged, then stared at him sharply. "I think." The implication was not a direct question, so he was able to ignore it.

"It was Lucius' idea to develop the potion and use it to kill ourselves rather than suffer like Wilkes did," her wince was rather gratifying, given that she had bettered him so soundly. "There's no other way out. You can't resign from death-eating any more than you can tell Crouch or Moody that you're sorry you've been a naughty boy and beg their forgiveness. I have to make this potion, Evans, it's my only hope. You must understand."

Xxx

"She still married James," marvelled Remus. "She knew he tortured Wilkes to death and still married him."

"It wasn't a decision she made lightly," said Snape, quietly.

"She discussed it with you?" asked Remus, surprised.

"We spent quite a bit of time together between Christmas and New Year, while Potter was mourning his father and the Death Eaters were doing the familial duties. I trusted her not to betray me to the aurors and she trusted me not to…well, silence her for knowing too much. I believe the idea of the incantation-activated potion captured her imagination too - Lily never could resist an academic challenge."

Flabbergasted yet again in this night of surprises, Remus gaped.

"She broke the law and helped you brew the suicide poison?!"

"You must remember from school, Remus, we were the Dream Team in the laboratory. I couldn't have done it without her."

Xxx

_S,_

_Here you go, 'borrowed' from the Old Man's library. I sliced off the cover and filled it with newspaper, so there's no gap on the shelf. He'll never notice it's missing._

_For God's sake be careful! I mean it._

_L._

Surrounded by brewing equipment in the secret cellar lab at Malfoy Manor, Snape gave the anonymous bird an owl treat and grinned as he imagined Lily stealing the rare and precious potioner's dictionary from her fiancé's family, defacing it and giving it to a known Death Eater to help him brew illegal poisons. Then he grinned even wider at the thought of Lucius' face if he ever found out that a member of the MLE forensics team was helping them achieve their dark little project.

It really was true, he reflected. Nothing was ever black and white.

Xxx

There didn't seem to be much that Remus could say after that. Obviously unearthed by the long discussion of the past, a hitherto forgotten memory surfaced, of Sirius flopping onto the lawn after a tough exam and exclaiming that even though he'd been sitting still for the last three hours, he felt like he'd sprinted all the way to Aberdeen… The light remark had been spot on at the time and now was a no less accurate description of Remus' current exhausted state.

Numbly, Remus and Severus agreed they should leave the bedroom and ventured into the dark kitchen to make tea. Neither of them wanted any tea, but sleep was out of the question and lying awake in bed brooding had proved insufferable after the first twenty minutes. Severus set the kettle boiling without any magical assistance before getting the milk. Remus opened the cupboard doors and reached for the mugs by hand. When he placed them on the worktop, the 'clunk' sound they made seemed very loud.

They carried the drinks through to the sitting room and lit a single lamp, not really needing to focus on the world outside of their own racing minds, although at the back of Remus' consciousness was the beginning tingle of one of the muscular pains associated with his illness. The tea cooled undrunk as the two wizards stared silently at nothing.

Eventually, Remus looked at Severus.

"So since then, since you were nineteen you have had the power to end your own life by uttering a single word, at any moment you choose?" There had been so much information to process, this fundamental fact had not managed to sink in earlier.

"Yes," whispered Snape, his voice hoarser than usual from too much talking, and quieter than usual from the crushing weight of the words it had been forced to utter.

"So…when you were captured and imprisoned with Harry, when you were being broken and put under Cruciatus, when you knew that Voldemort wanted to slowly kill you with as much pain as possible…" He stopped and stared into the congealing surface of the mug without actually seeing it.

"Yes?" Snape tried to prompt him to continue, but this time no sound at all came out. After a moment, Lupin continued anyway.

"Why didn't you end it? Why endure for all that time when you knew there was a way out? You, Malfoy and Lily went to all that trouble to give you your emergency escape and you never used it. Malfoy chose his own termination, rather than being given the dementor's Kiss. Why didn't you?"

Not even the superhuman ears of a werewolf could make out Snape's carefully considered reply, so Remus moved his stiffening body across the room and installed himself at his lover's feet in order to hear. Gratitude burst onto Snape's sharp features at the gesture of closeness and Lupin grasped his hand.

"I could not," he half heard, half lip-read the gravely-delivered response. "So much had happened since I took the poison, things were no longer so simple. Since defecting to Albus my life had a purpose, more than that, it was something which had to continue until I had atoned for the evils I had committed as a youth, which, as you heard this evening, were many. There was work to be done and Dumbledore made sure I was kept busy. When Harry and I were captured, it became clear that the Dark Lord was enjoying watching the boy's distress each time I was injured and that he would keep me alive - in agony, but alive - for as long as possible, only murdering Harry after I expired. I knew it was my duty to fight on in the hope that it would buy the rescue party time enough to find him before he was killed."

Remus had thought that he was emotionally saturated and unable to feel any more that night, but when the first sob came he realised this was not the case. The dispassionate account Severus gave of the horrific torture, which had harmed him to the extent that even magic had not been enough to cure all of the damage, was breaking Remus' heart. He lay his head on the good knee and cried, wondering whether in the same situation he would have had the courage to do likewise.

Severus' fingers gently tapped his shoulder until he lifted his heavy head and looked up into the tearful dark eyes of the bravest wizard he had ever known.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed.

"You're _what?_" sniffed the werewolf, incredulously.

"For keeping all this secret. But also for telling you. It's too great a burden…" Remus lost the rest of the sentence as he let his head droop again, burying his face in the fabric of Snape's dressing gown. There was more tapping, which he ignored, then fingers seized his hair and firmly pulled him up so that he could not help but see what he was being told.

"I'm so sorry for what I was. Although there is a great deal to think about, you are tired and too ill to be lying around on the floor. The things we must discuss can wait until morning. May I put you to bed?"

It was late when Remus awoke the next day. Astoundingly, he had slept well without being troubled by nightmares, so it took a few seconds for the details for Severus' confession to come back to him. Since he became ill, he had grown used to dozing at odd hours and waking alone, but now panic gripped him as he realised that Severus was not there. The details of his lover's grim past had shocked Remus as the story unfolded, sickened him even, yet murder and intrigue were less important now than the fact that Severus was only ever a single word away from death.

The notion of Severus dying was not something he had ever considered. Even before the wolfsbane scandal broke, it was common knowledge that a werewolf had a shorter lifespan than a human and despite his disabilities, Snape had always been as strong as an erumpent. Remus had casually assumed that he would have his partner for the rest of his life, yet suddenly, that dear existence had become so precarious at struck him cold with fear. Where was he? He needed Severus that minute, that second; needed to feel him warm and grumpy and alive despite the poison sleeping in his body.

He kicked away the bedclothes and sat on the edge of the bed waiting for his morning dizziness to subside.

"Josty!" He called the house-elf for help. The sooner he was ready, the sooner he could find Severus. "Josty!"

"Josty is here, master. Please, master Remus is not to be exerting hisself…" the little creature tried to lie him back down and was almost pushed away.

"Where's Severus?"

"Is master not well? Can Josty fetch…?"

"Josty! Please!" His control was slipping away. "Where is he? In the house? At the IMP?"

"He is gone for walking on the cliffs, master."

No man wielding such power over his own mortality would consider ending his life in so artless a way as jumping from a great height, Remus told himself as he hurried out of the Gatehouse towards the cliff path. Besides, this was Severus' favourite place to take exercise and it was only natural that he should come out into the fresh sea air after the harrowing night he must have passed, particularly if he had not slept so well as Remus.

These arguments were perfectly logical, yet no amount of reasoning could eradicate the trepidation quickening his breath as he scanned the landscape for a single dark figure. Perhaps the violence of the relentless waves splintering into jets of foam as they pounded the rocks just metres away, higher than usual for the time of year, made him feel more unsettled. Every gull-call made him start; a plastic bag blown along the ground by the wind had him reaching for his wand before he registered what it was.

Severus finally came into view as he rounded the next corner, looking suitably dark and windswept in spite of the midday sunshine. Rather than soothing Remus' worries however, the sight of him made them worse as the fear that something had happened to him gave way to fear of what would happen next.

Snape stood as soon as he spotted Remus, raising himself from the ancient stone wall where he had been sitting by leaning heavily on his walking stick. Adrenaline all spent, Remus stumbled a little as they walked along the beaten dirt path towards each other and immediately found a steadying charm supporting him.

"I'm all right," he said automatically, shrugging it off. A second later they were just feet apart and Severus, looking like hell and with black and white stripes of hair blowing around his head, was staring piercingly into his eyes.

"Are you, though?" he whispered.

"I don't know," Lupin answered. "I think I'm still reeling."

"Naturally," nodded Severus. His voice appeared to be back to normal - that is, dreadfully quiet and hoarse but easily audible to lycanthropine ears. Neither spoke for a while and stared out at the restless movement of the sea.

Don't kill yourself," Remus asked at last. "Now I know how easy it would be, I'm frightened."

"I shan't," he sounded surprised that such a thought could enter Remus' head. He continued matter-of-factly: "Not until I have found a new potion which will keep you safe at full moon without harming you, at least."

"Not even then!" Remus rounded on him with a shout. "You'd save my life for long enough to break my heart?! Severus Snape, don't you DARE do that to me!"

"I…" he took a step away, caught unawares by the sudden change of mood.

"You won't leave me!" Remus snarled, furious with fear, advancing on him and grasping his arms. "How could you even consider that?"

"After what you heard last night, you still want me?" Snape's eyes were wide with disbelief. "You would still want a despicable person like me as a lover?!"

"OF COURSE I DO!" Remus bellowed into his face, incandescent. The walking stick slid from Severus' hand as the grip on his upper arms tightened hard enough to bruise. "How could you think I wouldn't, after all this time and everything we've done together?"

"I killed Phelps."

"I don't care."

"You should," he attempted the familiar classroom sneer, but the effect was ruined by the tears beginning to run down his cheeks.

"I know," Remus relaxed his hold a little, still angry but too tired to continue shouting. "I ought to but I don't. Old age and infirmity has made me selfish and right now, things we did in the past seem a hell of a lot less important than our future, however short that turns out to be."

Severus' head flopped forward onto Remus' shoulder and they held each other for a long moment.

Any passing stranger approaching from a distance would have thought the embrace a tender, romantic one until he came close enough to be confused by the grim expressions on their faces, but then no stranger could understand the dark and heavy history which had weighed down the lives of both men. That the embrace was tender, romantic _and _grim, all at the same time, could only be grasped by those who knew them well, and only truly appreciated, truly felt, by Remus Lupin and Severus Snape.

After ten minutes they pulled apart, chilled by the wind until they were both shivering. Remus summoned Severus' cane and handed it to him.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome," Remus replied. "It was my fault you dropped it."

Snape sneered and rolled his reddened eyes.

"That's not what I was thanking you for, idiot werewolf."

"Vicious Slytherin git," he shot back, taking his arm and leading him back in the direction of home. "I know."

xxx

THE END.

xxx

Well, not quite. I can never resist an epilogue!

Huge thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read this story, despite wild changes of direction and enormous gaps between updates. Oh yes, and despite the utterly soppy romantic nonsense. I'm so pleased that anyone has the patience! Thank you so much for all your kind reviews - they mean a great deal to me. Love, Nightie xx


	13. Chapter 13

Epilogue

Sixteen Years Later

It was a bright March day but the wind was sharp and easily overpowered any warmth from the spring sun. The little cluster of people on the clifftop hunkered down inside their cloaks and those with long hair tried to stop it from blowing into their eyes as they tried to enjoy the sunshine after months of dark winter weather.

Harry glanced down at Pearl to check she had not unbuttoned her coat again, then over at his girlfriend, who was trying to stop Ruby from staring open-mouthed at Narcissa. He caught Hazel's eye and they exchanged an embarrassed smirk. Narcissa's intense cosmetic sorcery had had some effect - from certain angles, her face did look like that of a pretty twenty-five year old. Unfortunately, from where the Potter family was standing, the impression was rather that they were in the presence of an expensively dressed inferi.

Still in mourning for her fourth husband, the multi-millionaire broomstick magnate Thor Nimbus, Narcissa leaned heavily on her son's arm. Draco's other arm was being leaned on more suggestively by his girlfriend, Suki, whose minidress seemed more appropriate for summer on the beach than the present solemn ceremony in early spring. Harry's lips twitched as he recalled Ron seeing her for the time earlier that morning and exclaiming far too loudly:

"Bloody hell! No wonder they came by floo, she can't be old enough to apparate!" Hermione's elbow had jabbed him in the ribs and he doubled up in pain before he had chance to see the revulsion on Malfoy's face as he was dragged away by his young love, and Harry had been beyond grateful that a fight had been avoided on that day, of all days. Hogwarts' class of 1998 had all turned forty now, but it seemed some things were never going to change.

Harry's eyes continued their sweep of the little group. Emily had been hugging Snape all morning and showed no sign of letting him go yet. She was sixteen now, large and boisterous, and of all the children, was probably the closest to the softly-spoken potioner, who doted on her. Hardly anyone ever remembered that Ron wasn't her biological father and the words 'Finch-Fletchley' were never spoken in the Weasley household.

The cowardly Justin had come crawling back to Hermione three weeks before Emily's birth, prostrating himself in apology, begging to be allowed a chance at involvement in their child's life. Against her better judgement, not to mention Ron, Harry and Severus' howls of outrage, she had accepted that he had the right to meet the baby and be its Dad. He had bought hundreds of galleons' worth of toys and baby equipment, read books with Hermione about the best way to raise children to be intelligent and spent a long time listening in wonder to the baby's heartbeat. Even Ron had been forced to admit that he seemed sincere in his efforts to behave responsibly.

They were mistaken, however. Fifteen minutes after Emily's birth came the first mention of Down's Syndrome and Finch-Fletchley disappeared forever.

It took Ron two years to convince Hermione to marry him; shortly afterwards Emily had acquired her favourite playthings - first came Stephen, then Jonathan and Little Arthur at the same time. Ron's hair and beard had turned white not long after the arrival of the twins and Severus thanked Merlin every day that he was no longer a teacher and would never be faced with the task of trying to make the brood of mischievous know-it-alls sit behave in a laboratory. There were many reasons he adored Emily most of all, not least because on arriving at school she was sorted into Slytherin and soon became the finest goalkeeper the house had ever known, getting a special achievement trophy the season she refused to concede a single goal. So proud was she of the cup, she refused to keep it in the school trophy cupboard and instead carried it around everywhere she went, even to bed.

Today, she knew that Snape was very sad and had refused to leave his side since the family arrived in Cornwall first thing that morning.

"He doesn't look very sad," whispered Pearl, tugging at Harry's robes. Harry glanced down uneasily at his daughter, wondering, not for the first time, how it was that the six year-old frequently knew what he was thinking. Snape had insisted that there was no such thing as a natural Legilimens, that the rare skill had to be learned carefully over time by (here he glared scathingly at Harry,) _highly skilled_ witches or wizards.

"It was naughty of you to throw a jar of creepy-crawlies at my Daddy!" Pearl had interjected, huffing at Snape. Harry and Snape had stared at each other for a long moment, aware that neither had mentioned the painful story of the fifth-year Occlumency lessons in front of anyone else.

"How did you know about that, sweetheart?" Harry had asked carefully. Pearl hadn't responded, but seemed very wary of Snape after that.

Pearl and Ruby were without doubt the greatest thing to have happened to Harry in the whole of his eventful life. He had been horrified to learn, years before, that after his own experience with the Durselys and despite the world knowing how Voldemort's boyhood had contributed to his later actions, there was still no official policy for taking care of magical orphans. Muggle-born magical children who lost their parents struggled in muggle institutions, where no one could explain their powers and they were often hated or feared by overworked staff. If magical schools managed to track them down at the age of eleven, many either failed to understand and suspected a cruel joke, or others were unable to convince their carers to take them to buy school equipment or to secret rendezvous such as the apparently non-existent platform nine and three quarters at King's Cross station.

With help from Hazel and their friends, Harry founded an international organisation to seek out magical children in the care of the state or of unsympathetic relatives and offer them support. Now celebrating its tenth birthday, the network was thriving and had helped hundreds of youngsters across the world by putting them in touch with magical children they would later meet at school as quill-pals; offering advice on how to manage outbursts of raw magic in public and even organising American-style summer camps where they could meet other people in their situation and realise that they were not 'freaks'.

It was while on a visit to an orphanage in a remote town in China that he met the two tiny girls. The place had been in a dreadful state and he had left in feeling very distressed, vowing to return as soon as he could come up with a way of improving things. After a week he had still been unable to shake off the image of the two babies he had met, one slightly older and already quite obviously a witch, the other, the one with the enormous, captivating brown eyes a little muggle, clinging to each other for warmth and comfort in that awful, cold place.

"Harry?" Hazel had blinked in the kitchen light. "It's four in the morning. Are you all right?"

"Sorry," he sighed. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You've been a mess ever since you got back from China. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Harry had pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, wondering what would happen if he voiced aloud the fledgling idea which had been keeping him awake.

"We gave up on having a family," he began. Hazel bit her lower lip and nodded.

"Please don't say you want us to go through all that trying and failing again because I don't think I can bear any more miscarriages, any more vain hope…" His arms were around her in a second, soothing and reassuring.

"No, no, of course not. I can't go through that again and I couldn't let you do it either," he swallowed. "It's just…just that I've met two children who would love to have a home as desperately as we would love our home to have children."

Pearl and Ruby had cast their spell over Hazel just as they had captivated Harry and within weeks they were installed at the house in Godric's Hollow. Pure joy shone out of the new parents as the timid pair blossomed in their care and all their friends rejoiced to see the four of them so content.

Harry squeezed Pearl's hand and allowed himself a quick smile when she squeezed back harder before turning solemn once again. Hermione had begun reading aloud a poignant passage from a book now and he listened for a moment. It was one of Remus' favourite authors and quite a nice excerpt, actually, but his mind wasn't in a mood to absorb it. Surrounded by so many of his nearest and dearest made him overemotional and rather restless. He turned to look at the people standing behind him.

Ginny gave a little wave and he nodded back. Her Irish wolfhound, Scruff, was antsy too, trying to hide underneath her cloak and shooting worried glances at the werewolves standing a few feet away.

With the help of extensive research by Snape, Hardtbrind and most of the rest of the Institute of Master Potioners, Team Wolf had developed Wolfsafe, the new non-toxic alternative to Wolfsbane. Werewolves the world over had rejoiced at no longer having to experience the agonising 'natural' transformation since the discovery that the long term use of Wolfsbane seriously damaged their health and might eventually kill them. The general press-fuelled panic every full moon ('Lock up your children or they will be _eaten!!!!!_') had abated and the narrow-minded folk who had shrieked for the incarceration or destruction of so-called dangerous beasts slowly relaxed. Everyone involved in the discovery had received an Order of Merlin (First Class) and had gone up an IMP standard, making Snape one of very few wizards in history to achieve a Double Gold.

One morning, without any warning or prior courting, Team Wolf members Luna and Asif had suddenly married then went straight back to work as their latest project had been at a critical stage. They had spent their wedding night in the lab and poor Asif had been bitten by one of the volunteer subjects. He tested positive for lycanthropy a few days later, but neither he nor his long-term werebitch bride seemed at all perturbed.

Team member Roger had been headhunted by prestigious medical research facility Pretoria Potions Inc. and lost touch with his old friends after moving to South Africa, while Tony had disappeared during a field trip to Sumatra. Three years later his knapsack and wand had been found by hikers and he was declared legally dead, probably eaten by creature or creatures unknown.

The remaining pair stood with their arms around each other now, Luna sniffing softly while her husband blew his nose like a trumpet.

Discreetly standing furthest from the little group was Hans Hardtbrind. He was obviously trying to strike a respectful pose with his hands clasped in front of him, but still could not resist puffing his chest out, just in case anyone had failed to notice the enormous chain of office of the Director of the Institute glittering around his neck. No one could remember the late Professor Hayashi bothering to wear the huge heavy seal embossed with the IMP's coat of arms and motto; her successor, however, wore it every single day and according to student rumour even kept it on in the bath.

Hostilities between the pompous Hardtbrind and the grumpy Snape had ceased, to the relief of all save the student Healers, who liked to watch the two potions heavyweights squabble and place bets on the outcome of their professional disagreements. The reason for the ceasefire was sadly not a dignified one. Each thought that he had scored the ultimate win over the other and so the game was at an end. As soon as Hardtbrind was appointed director of the Institute he danced around his rooms shouting "Ja! Ja! I'm the best, not old big-nose!" and no longer deigned to quarrel with someone so obviously beneath his new rank. Snape, meanwhile, treasured the secret that in fact, _he_ had first been offered the directorship but had quietly turned it down in order to spend more time with Remus. Hardtbrind was unaware that he had been the board's second choice. In Snape's book, this made him officially superior to that oafish halfwit so there was no point arguing over the details.

Harry turned back to Snape, who, as Pearl had observed, didn't look very sad. She lacked her father's years of experience at reading the uncommunicative man's blank expressions, though, and Harry thought he could catch a glimpse of utter devastation in the way his thin lips were pressed together to prevent any grief escaping through them. Hermione had stopped speaking now and closed the book so Severus carefully removed the lid of the little urn and took a step towards the edge of the cliff. This proximity to danger worried Emily, who let go of his hand for the first time that day and protectively took a firmer hold of his arm instead.

He didn't speak as he slowly took a handful of ash. Harry's eyes suddenly prickled, though he could have sworn all his grieving had been done weeks earlier. Also feeling the sorrow of the moment, Jonathan Weasley gave a miserable wail and buried his face in Ron's belly, followed a second later by Little Arthur.

Snape flung the ashes upwards and the blustery sea wind whipped them away, around the cove, above the rocks, over the sea and everywhere. He stared after them for a long time.

One by one, the guests went up to him and took their leave with a kiss, hug or handshake, slowly trailing up the path to the house. After an understanding glance at Harry, Hazel took Ruby, Pearl and Emily down to the rock pool to look for jellyfish, leaving him and Snape alone with the crying of the gulls and an empty urn.

"Didn't think I had any tears left," sniffed Harry, removing his glasses to wipe them with a sad smile. "Just shows how much I know."

"Are you all right?" asked Snape, in his whisper.

"Pardon?" asked Harry. Snape repeated himself, remembering that Remus had been the only one who always understood every word of the damaged voice without having to concentrate too hard. His hands tightened around the urn.

"I should be asking you that," replied Harry. "I said my goodbyes to him in person weeks ago, when we knew the end was coming. I wheeled him outside to look at the snowdrops in the garden and we said everything we needed to. It was quite nice, actually."

"I remember," said Snape, turning to face Harry so that he stood a chance of lip-reading. They stood in silence for a little while.

"So, will you be all right?" Harry studied him closely. "Well, foolish question, when you've just lost the love of your life. What I mean is, you've been caring for him for months. What will you do now? Go back to work at the IMP? We always need help with Orphan Outreach if you want to keep yourself busy for a while."

"Thank you. I already have a plan I made a long time ago," croaked Snape. Harry waited expectantly, until he realised that the older wizard was not intending to share the details.

"Good," he smiled sincerely. "We'll be inviting you over very often though, so I hope that's part of your plan." Snape quirked the corner of his mouth a tiny fraction and said nothing.

He waited on the clifftop for a long while after Harry left, drinking in the beauty of the place where he had loved to walk with Remus, remembering how good it had been to have someone to love absolutely, someone who knew all his darkest most sordid secrets and accepted him all the same. It was beyond cruel that the warmth of Remus, his glowing smile, his laugh and his knack of knowing when to adore his partner and when he wanted to be alone were all gone now - a handful of dust which simply blew away.

Remus' health had never fully recovered since the Wolfsbane scandal had forced his already subtly damaged body to undergo true transformations for twenty one months until the new, safe potion had been developed and tested. Years of imbibing the toxins in Wolfsbane had worn away at him, so that even when he began taking Wolfsafe, he had aged painfully. This story was true for many other werewolves so he tried not to complain and simply to be glad that the problem had been spotted in time to allow him sixteen more years of life, even if for many of those he was physically weakened and a virtual invalid for the last two.

He and Severus had spent lots of time alone towards the end, enjoying each other's company, but Remus had also loved to be surrounded by their younger friends, especially the children. The Weasley boys running amok around his sickbed had always made him roar with laughter, their wicked humour and plots probably reminding him of long-gone times when his younger self would frolic with James Potter and Sirius Black.

When Snape was certain that no visitors would still be lingering in his house, he strode back along the cliff path. It had been six years since his bad knee had been replaced with a marvellous new synthetic one, yet it still felt amazing to be able to storm and stalk and swoop around again. He had cheerfully tossed aside the cane as soon as he recovered from the magi-surgery, but sadly it had only remained in retirement for a few years. Remus had started using it once the strengthening potions stopped helping his fading muscles, occasionally at first, then gradually he came to rely on it permanently as his lover once had.

Severus peered through the sitting room window of the Gatehouse. When he was satisfied that no well-wishers were still lurking about, he summoned a trowel and set about burying the urn that had contained Remus' ashes in the werewolf's favourite flowerbed. After a moment's reflection, Snape decided the best spot would be near to that wretched red dahlia he was so fond of - the one he had rescued from Grimmauld Place, replanted at his Derbyshire home then finally brought here once they had decided it would be better for him to be at Snape's home. The sea air, the healer had said, would do him good. Coupled with the help of Josty the house elf and Snape's temper being the sweeter for being near his precious library, Remus' move to Cornwall had made perfect sense.

Brushing the soil from his hands, he straightened up effortlessly and sent the trowel back to its spot in the shed. Once inside the house, he asked Josty for a cup of tea and moved through to the sitting-room, where he noticed that the old kneazle who had moved herself in years ago without consulting him and showed no inclination to leave or die, had smugly taken over Remus' favourite chair.

"Off with you!" hissed Snape. The kneazle ignored him, as usual, so he left her alone. "I suppose he doesn't need it any more," he whispered with resignation. The kneazle purred smugly.

While Josty poured the tea, Snape unfolded a list which had been in his pocket for a few days. Most items on it had been ticked off so that only a few points remained, one of which read "burn this list".

"Thank you, Josty," he said. "Thank you for everything. You have been invaluable to me."

"Josty is very glad to hear it!" The elf glowed at the praise, although her eyes were still red and her ears drooped from weeping non-stop for a week. "She is loving to help Master."

"You are a very good elf," he whispered. "I would like you to leave now and go to stay with Dobby until tomorrow."

"Master?" Josty looked scandalised. "But Master is needing his Josty very very much now! Josty won't be leaving him on his own while he is so upset!" And she began crying so miserably that Snape was forced to kneel down until he was on her level and give her an awkward hug.

"Of course I need you. I have decided that I would like to spend some time completely alone, to come to terms with Remus not being here any more. Over the past six days there have been crowds of people coming and going and I have been busy organising the cremation and the scattering ceremony, so there hasn't been time to adjust to the fact that he's gone. I would like to have some peace. Do you understand?"

The elf nodded grudgingly.

"Josty wouldn't be in the way, Master," she wheedled. "Josty would be staying in the kitchen, quieter than mouses."

"Please, Josty. This is what I want."

"All right," she snuffled. "Josty is going now."

"Thank you. You are the best elf a wizard could meet."

After she left, Snape crossed another thing off his list.

He checked that all was well in the library, then the study. Half a dozen or so sealed envelopes had been locked in a drawer of his desk for several days, with names written in his small cramped handwriting. He took these out now, checked they were all present, then put them in his pocket. Opening the large bottom drawer, he reached inside and pressed the tiny lever which opened the secret compartment. From this, he took several thick notebooks and a wooden box which had been shrunk for many years in order to make it fit. It returned to its normal size only after a highly unusual spell and a few pages of parchment spilled out.

The handwriting on them was not his and many of the words were written in the Magyar language.

Levitating the whole lot into to the grate, Snape made sure he had every last scrap of his work as well as Sophia Malfoy's and her Hungarian friend's before incinerating them and vanishing the ash so that the only trace of evidence of the existence of Incantation Activated Potions was a faint smell of burning.

The letters he placed neatly on the coffee table, so that anyone entering by the fireplace would be sure to see them immediately and perhaps get a little warning as to what they would find upstairs.

Two more items were crossed off the list.

After that, there was little left to do. Snape took a shower and dried himself, put on a fresh nightgown and cleaned his teeth. Only Josty knew that since Remus' death a week earlier, Severus had been sleeping in the spare room and had not touched a thing in their bedroom since the body had been taken away. Remus' reading glasses were still on the side table and hopefully…

Snape bent down and took a deep sniff of the pillow on Remus' side of the bed.

….yes. The scent of Remus was still there, comforting and wonderful as it had always been.

He slid between the sheets inhaling the precious smell and smiling with joy. It was all over. Those years of medical tests and wondering, then the months of struggling with the inevitable and waiting while it took so long. Having to watch while bright eyes dulled, clever fingers became clumsy, while the adorable face changed shape as the life drained away and all happening with torturous slowness. Fortunately it was finished now. There would be no more pain or potions for that brave soul, Snape thought with a relieved sigh, nor, thank Merlin, for this cowardly one.

A sudden thought of Lucius Malfoy in his cell in Azkaban came to him, pleading in code for the incantation he had forgotten and needed desperately the night before he was due to receive the dementors' Kiss. To remove the unwelcome and untimely vision from his mind he took another deep sniff of the lingering scent of Remus and his head filled with the memory of warm amber eyes and a soft chuckle. It was just what he wanted.

Nothing else had really mattered over the course of his life, he now realised. He had been the most fortunate of men to know such love. There was no question of being able to survive without it - not even the most evil of dark lords could have committed any act of depraved foulness on Severus Snape which would have been more cruel.

He took one last look at the list, assured himself that everything was done, then incinerated it. Then he removed his glasses and placed his wand on the table in the spot where Remus used to place his, closed his eyes and focussed his magical power inwards on the unseen poison which had lain dormant in his body until this moment, when he needed it.

"_Mercy_," he whispered, smiling.

xx


End file.
